


in between days

by gardensong



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, friends being the best, no pennywise, suicidal thoughts but not really... like very light stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2020-11-26 10:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardensong/pseuds/gardensong
Summary: Beverly lived on the other side of town, so Richie would ride along the kissing bridge pretty much daily. He always, without fail, found himself casting glances towards the letters he had etched there four summers ago. Today, he kept his eyes on the road. Eddie and Betty had a second date scheduled for tomorrow.summer of '93 if there'd never been a clown





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> so, i read this quote from director andy that said that cuz of richie's trauma he never got to come into his own sexuality properly and come to terms with his crush on eddie. the quote said something like, whatever would have happened didn't happen. (ignoring he said eddie wasnt gay) this is my take on what would have happened if not for that darn clown.
> 
> **content warnings:** there are some homophobic/lesbophobic comments made in this that i don't agree with. hopefully that comes through, but just in case. also, there are mentions of sex, but nothing explicit. pretty much the same level as the movies.
> 
> thank u lucinda for sitting thru this with me i owe u my lyf
> 
> title from the cure's song of the same name

Eddie was a terrible shot. It was an objective fact. He missed Richie’s desk by two, and Richie had to coerce Heather Coleman to hand it over through gritted teeth. Orange hair heavy with hairspray, she opened it, frowned at the interior and finally dropped it onto Richie’s desk with a whispered, “Nerds.”

Richie ignored her and unravelled the torn page to get a look at the results. There were only two votes for the quarry. The rest were all for the clubhouse. Richie looked over his shoulder at Eddie, who was watching him out of the corner of his eye. 

“Coward,” he mouthed at him.

“It’s going to rain,” Eddie whispered, only he wasn’t so adept at whispering, so it came out like a hiss. Mr. Jackson didn’t seem to care much, however, seeing as unrest was growing in the entire classroom as the final bell of the year drew nearer. Even though the grey clouds hanging over the town of Derry suggested otherwise, summer was only minutes away: Sophomore year was coming to an end.

Richie looked down at the note again. Under _ CLUBHOUSE _ , Bill’s neat handwriting read _ trust me!, _with a smiley face beside it. Whatever the fuck that meant. Richie didn’t care that it was going to rain – it was still hot, proven by his t-shirt plastered onto his back and his dark hair sticking to his forehead and neck. The air was thick with it, with heat that was wet, and besides, the clubhouse leaked like crazy when it rained, no matter how many times Ben claimed that he had “fixed” it.

Richie took his pencil and began drawing on the note, over the vote’s fateful results. He drew himself sitting in class with notches for eyes. It wasn’t very good. He was adding a poor rendition of the Truckers of America logo to cartoon Richie’s t-shirt when the bell rang.

One class over, some meathead yelled, “SCHOOL’S OUT, BITCHES!”

Cheers erupted in Richie’s class, chairs scraping across the linoleum floor in an ugly symphony of screeches and footfalls. Richie slammed his book shut and thrust it into his backpack, tossing his pencil in there, too. Kids were already out of the classroom, storming down the hallway when Bill reached his side, bouncing from one foot to the other and raring to go. Richie’s face felt as if it were splitting in half, his smile was so big. Fuck. They had made it through another year.

“If we’re going to the clubhouse I have to pick up some stuff from home,” Eddie was saying as he came up behind them, a crease between his eyebrows. “Like a raincoat, because it’s so obviously gonna rain.”

“I need to pick something up, too,” Bill nodded, looking almost proud of himself. Richie raised an eyebrow.

“What are you hiding, man?”

“Richard Tozier. Could you hang back a moment?”

The three of them froze on the spot, suddenly the last kids still stuck in class with the teacher. Mr. Jackson was looking at Richie, eyebrows raised in that teacher way. He had to be fucking kidding. School was officially out and yet Richie was still being called back. Was that legal? It could not be legal. Eddie and Bill were still by Richie’s side, but neither of them needed much persuading to leave. All Richie had to do was shrug and they were gone, shoving each other playfully as they went.

“We’ll be outside!” Bill called right before Richie lost sight of them in the sea of students. And then he was alone with Mr. Jackson.

Mr. J had a ginger moustache and was balding. He only ever wore short-sleeved polo shirts, even during the colder months, and today he wore one that was mint green with a dark stripe across the chest. Richie had heard kids around school call him a fruit. They were probably right.

Dutifully, his hands clasped around the straps of his backpack, Richie approached the teacher’s desk. Mr. J hadn’t made any move to leave, to pack up his things and jump up and out of the classroom the way the students had. Teachers never seemed eager to get out of school, but Richie refused to believe they liked it. They were just old, boring and tired.

Mr. J hadn’t even closed his notepad. He was tapping a page with a red pen, as if waiting for the right moment to speak. Richie’s eyes flickered towards the window on the opposite wall. Some freshman girl was doing cartwheels out on the grass in celebration. He looked back to Mr. J, trying not to seem too impatient.

“I just wanted to let you know,” Mr J. said finally, “that I know you’re not thrilled about the prospect of having to come to summer classes—“ Richie snorted. That was an understatement. Mr. J. continued, one wispy eyebrow slightly tilted, “—but you’re a smart kid, Tozier. And I want you to see this as an opportunity. I really think you have potential.”

“So you’re saying I don’t try hard enough,” Richie blurted out. The noise in the hallway behind him was dying down. “Sorry, Mr. J, but every teacher I’ve ever had and my parents beat you to that one.” He shrugged, then made to leave.

“No,” Mr. J said, irritated. “I’m saying that maybe we need to find… a different method for you. I think— I _ know _ you’re a bright kid, Tozier. Brighter than ninety percent of the kids in this class.”

Richie, frozen in his tracks, tried to keep his facade from falling. He hadn’t heard that one before.

“You’re going to have to start thinking about colleges soon, and these summer classes could really help you going into your senior year.”

Jeez, this guy was talking about senior year already? Richie had only just gotten through this one.

“Thanks, Mr. J,” he said blandly, not feeling thankful at all. He should be outside already. “I’ll keep that in mind. See you in class.”

Mr. J just sighed in response. “Alright,” he said, finally closing his notepad. “Have a good summer.”

Richie snorted to himself as he finally made it into the hallway, his tennis shoes squeaking on the linoleum. _ Have a good summer? _ He pushed his glasses up his nose as he made the right towards the stairwell. They were literally gonna be back in that classroom a week from now. God, the dude was totally hot for him. He was going to tell the Losers as much when he found them, but instead got distracted by Betty Ripsom. Stray strands of hair had come out of her two braids and her face was shiny from the humidity. She walked past him with her hand covering a nervous giggle, back towards her own friends, and every one of the Losers were staring after her.

Richie watched her unabashedly over his shoulder, asking, “What’s her deal?” as soon as he was in earshot. Ben was the only one who hadn’t joined them yet. Beverly was perched on the back of the bench Bill and Mike were sitting on, tapping her cigarette onto the grass beneath them with the moving crowd as cover. Stan was the one to answer Richie, eyebrows lost behind his curly hair.

“She just asked Eddie out,” he said. 

Richie looked at Eddie, _ Is this true? _When Eddie quickly looked to the side instead of answering, he said, “Like, out of the closet? She’s a total lesbo.”

“N-n-not cool, Richie,” Bill said sternly, his bangs falling into his eyes. He was going for this weird grunge look these days, wearing a bob with a middle part that didn’t suit him that well at all.

“What? I’m not the only one who thinks it! She’s probably just looking for a beard after daddy dearest found her hands deep in some bull–“

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bev interjected, and Richie shrugged but desisted.

“Just trying to put a positive spin on things,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

“How is calling Betty Ripsom a lesbian a positive spin?” Stan inquired.

“Well,” Richie dug his hands into his pockets, “‘cause Eddie turned her down.”

The group was silent. Eddie wouldn’t meet Richie’s gaze.

“I said yes,” he spoke up when no one else did. He looked at Richie, then, his brown eyes defiant.

“Oh,” Richie said. “In that case,” he raised his hand for a high five. Eddie looked at it, rolled his eyes and shouldered past him.

“Jeez,” Richie said as Eddie headed off without another word. “I never knew he was so hot for Betty Rips-em.”

“You’re such a dick,” was Stan’s reply. He shook his head as if he were not mad, but disappointed, because he was actually secretly forty fucking years old and Richie’s father. Then he and Mike began to leave, too. Mike pat Richie on the shoulder as he went past, as if he and Stanley had some weird good-cop, bad-cop routine. They had gotten closer ever since Mike had come back to school probably because they were both equally nerdy and stuck in all the special nerd classes together. Not that Richie was jealous.

“_ Dude _,” Richie called after Stanley, arms open.

“I gotta have lunch with my folks,” Stan said, which wasn’t an apology.

“Is Mike invited?” Richie asked, but only Bill and Beverly remained to hear him. “Is Mike invited?” he asked again. Bill shrugged.

“They said they’d meet us at the clubhouse a-after lunch,” he said, but Richie had already moved on.

“What, was I supposed to shake his hand or something? I didn’t formally congratulate you when you and Bev started bumping uglies!”

Bev quirked an eyebrow, blowing out smoke, and Bill quickly clarified, “You did, actually. And we’re not b-bumping anything.”

“You didn’t have to imply that the only girl who’s ever showed interest in him was a lesbian and faking it,” Beverly added.

“Oh, come on, you guys know that’s not how I meant it.”

Beverly and Bill shared a look.

“_ Seriously _?”

“Did Eddie know?” Bill asked.

Richie fell backwards in frustration, bumping into an annoyed senior as he did.

“Jesus _ fuck _! You girls are all so touchy,” he complained, thrusting his hands into his pockets and marching off.

“See you at the clubhouse!” Bill called after him. Seconds later, as soon as Richie was across the street, he heard Ben ask, “What did I miss?”

Richie had been planning on walking Eddie home to drop off his stuff anyway. It wasn’t like he needed to stop by his own place before heading into the woods, or that he’d even want to.

He found Eddie a few streets over and fastened his pace to better catch up with him.

“Eds! Eddie! _ Eduardo _! Hold up!”

Eddie did stop, but he made a show of it, huffily putting his weight on his left foot and looking upwards. He didn’t turn around.

Richie launched himself onto his back, ruffling his hair. He slid off when Eddie tried to slap him off and nearly got his glasses. Putting his hands on Eddie’s shoulders to keep him at arm's length, he looked him in the eye, eyebrows raised to purvey the seriousness of what he was about to say.

“You know you’re one sexy motherfucker, right? I’m sure half the girls in our grade and over are dripping wet twenty-four-_ seven _ over these tousled curls.” He made to ruffle Eddie’s hair again, but Eddie bat him away. “C’mon,” he tried again, squeezing his shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

Somewhere in the distance, the grey sky rumbled.

“You’re an asshole,” Eddie muttered. But he couldn’t look Richie in the eye when he said it, and Richie could tell he wasn’t mad anymore.

“And you’re gonna get laid before I do,” Richie said, shaking him gently. “What a world.”

“Christ, you’re disgusting.”

“Oh, I am, am I?” With that, Richie dropped his hands from Eddie’s shoulders and twisted his nipples. “This is what’s known as second base!”

“Get the fuck off of me!” Eddie squeaked, jumping back with his arms flailing wildly. Richie persisted, dancing around him wiggling his fingers.

“I’m getting you ready for your first big date, young grasshopper!”

“I will pay you money to stop!”

Richie unclipped Eddie’s fanny pack, like a _ ninja _, and then proceeded to shake it in his ear. “Sorry, but it sounds to me like that’s a luxury you can’t afford.”

“Give it back, Richie.”

“Make me,” Richie said, lifting it in the air above them.

Eddie’s eyes were on his fanny pack when he licked his lips. Richie’s stomach dipped.

He dropped his arm, suddenly not in the mood to fuck around, and instead wrapped it around Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie didn’t take the fanny pack back, so it hung from Richie’s hand and knocked against his hip as they walked home.

It was raining by the time they reached the clubhouse.

“I told you, I fucking told you!” Eddie said when thunder cracked loudly above the trees. He was a bit behind Richie because he was preoccupied with hopping around the puddles in the forest path instead of just stepping through them, tennis shoes be damned, like Richie had.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining — you’re dressed for a goddamn hurricane,” Richie said. Of course, he wore a raincoat to match Eddie’s, upon his friend’s insistence. He had refused the extra pair of rain boots, however, not just because they were too small. Eddie looked ridiculous. It was July, for Christ’s sake. Of course he did not pass up the opportunity to point out what was said about big feet such as his own when Eddie tried to make his spare pair of boots fit him.

“If we were at the quarry, what would we do, exactly?” Eddie nattered on, skipping over a muddy branch. “Stand around the water catching colds on the first day of summer? No thank you.”

Richie rolled his eyes and tapped his foot on the clubhouse hatch. He wiped the front part of his glasses with his sleeve, but just made the raindrop splatter worse. Ben was the one to lift the hatch from inside, and Richie kicked it the rest of the way open with his foot, stepping aside and bowing in a sweeping gesture.

“After you, princess,” he told Eddie.

“Shut up,” Eddie replied, but he was already climbing onto the ladder. He grabbed outwards with one hand, and Richie held out his own arm for Eddie to hold onto as he lowered himself into the hole. “God, it stinks down here. Wait…”

Eddie hopped off of the ladder at the bottom and Richie followed.

“No way…” he said, skipping the last few steps of the ladder and jumping down instead. “Is that _ marijuana _I smell?”

“It’s not oregano,” Stan supplied. He was in the hammock, his shoes in a neat pile by the nearest pole. Stan was never in the hammock.

“You started without us?” Richie demanded, and Eddie backed into him.

“Guys, this is so not cool. My mom— she’s gonna smell it on me right away! She’s like a goddamn bloodhound. She’s already on my back about your cigarettes—“ he glared at Beverly, then over his shoulder at Richie, “— but if she smells _ weed _,” he whispered, “on me, I’m a dead man.”

“Relax, Ed,” Mike said. He was sat beside Ben, who was holding the blunt between his finger and thumb and looking at it suspiciously. “One of us can lend you clothes before you head home.”

“I can lend you something of mine, if you want,” Beverly smiled sweetly. Richie’s stomach swooped again. Stan giggled from the hammock. Probably the appropriate reaction to the image Bev had concocted.

“Yeah, relax, Eds,” Richie said, patting Eddie’s shoulder, which was slick and wet from rain, as he headed towards Ben and Mike and shrugged out of his borrowed raincoat. Under the stink of weed was the smell of the wet wood and dirt that made up their little hideout. “Where’d you get this, anyway?” he asked Bill. This was obviously the secret thing he’d had to go home for. His eyes were pink and glassy, the grin on his face way stupider than usual.

“You know how Bev’s aunt only lets us smoke in the house?” Bill asked. Richie was secretly hurt. He didn’t know Bill was allowed to smoke at Bev’s place, too. “Well, she’s been b-bringing some over to mine for the past couple of weeks. Little by little, so her aunt wouldn’t n-notice.”

“Poor aunt Lucy,” Richie admonished, but he couldn’t feel that bad for her. Not right now, anyway. Maybe later.

“Also, I scored this,” Beverly said, tugging her backpack towards her and revealing different shaped glass bottles.

Richie mimed wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

“I’m marrying you both. Like the Mormons.”

“I don’t think the Mormons would be too happy about two d-dudes,” Bill grinned.

“I’ll be in charge of the beverages, thank you!” Richie said, ignoring him and making grabby hands for the bag. “Eddie, sit down, relax. You’re among friends.”

Eddie muttered something under his breath but did as he was told, sitting on the floor between Bill and Stan in the hammock. Richie took out each bottle to see what he was working with, and Stan ruffled Eddie’s hair.

“You’re all wet,” he giggled.

“God, if I smoke that will I be as embarrassing as this?” Eddie asked, smacking Stan away.

“That’s the idea,” Bev smiled.

“Stan hit it pretty hard pretty fast,” Bill told Richie. “It was kind of unnerving.”

“That’s what she said,” Stan laughed. Richie eyes started to prickle.

“I’m so proud of him,” he said, voice thick. Beside him, Mike coughed loudly and wiped at his eyes. “Here,” Richie said, passing Eddie a cup as Beverly crawled to Mike’s side to give him a tutorial.

“Did you spit in this?” Eddie asked.

“No, I didn’t spit in it. You’ve been beside me literally the whole fucking time. Paranoid much?” Richie leaned across him to hand one to stoned Stan who, frankly, didn’t look like he needed it. He accepted it nodding, with closed eyes and a small smile. Eddie started sniffing his own cup and Richie and Bill shared a smirk.

“Just don’t give me gin,” Mike told Richie. His eyes were still a little watery, but Ben was holding the blunt now.

“I didn’t bring _ gin _,” Beverly said as she scooted towards Ben, mock offended.

Eddie gagged loudly. “This is disgusting,” he said, his whole face scrunched up.

“That’s kind of the point,” Richie replied. When he passed a cup over to Ben, Ben bravely knocked the whole thing back in one go. They all cheered, and Ben smiled at them all, face red.

“I’m not drinking it,” Eddie declared, setting his cup down on the muddy floorboards.

“You already did, dipshit. Mikey!”

Beverly stood up and sat between Bill and Richie. Richie patted her knee and she patted his knee back before beginning rolling another joint. Ben offered the first one to Eddie.

“Need any help, Eds?” Richie offered as Eddie inspected the foreign object.

“No, I don’t need any help,” Eddie snapped. “I know how to smoke.”

“No you don’t,” Richie said, struck dumb by the notion that Eddie could have ever smoked without him.

“Well, it’s like my inhaler, right?” Eddie said. Richie didn’t know enough about inhalers to question that, and was shocked into silence as Eddie bravely put the blunt (which had been on _ pretty much everyone’s lips _ except for Richie’s) to his own mouth and sucked in as everyone stared. 

He wheezed out the smoke and looked so proud of himself that for once, Richie didn’t have the heart to poke fun.

“God,” he said instead to the group at large, “everyone’s all grown up. I might cry.”

Mike elbowed him in a fond gesture, and soon they all relaxed into discussions about the school year and their summer plans, the air around them getting lighter as the smoke grew thicker. The leaks dripping through the old wooden beams of the underground shelter weren’t a nuisance… they just _ were, _like the hum of the radio and the ants that lived in the floorboards. As the minutes went on, Ben got really giggly, which was great, because he was so serious all the time. Stan just looked happy, relaxed and kind of smug, watching them all from his hammock like a benevolent god proud of his own creation.

“I’m not feeling anything,” Mike shrugged after Bill and Eddie had dissolved into a giggling fit over absolutely nothing, clearly a bit frustrated. “I’m doing it wrong.”

“It’s all about the breathing,” Richie said in his best aunt Lucy impression. “Come on, everyone. Deep breath in, feel it in your _ belly– _”

“Stop,” Beverly laughed, slapping his arm and leaving it there. Wow, her palm was _ so _ warm. “And there’s always another way,” she said, grinning.

Bill clearly read her mind because ducked his head smiling as Beverly took a deep drag of the joint and turned to face him. The group watched in varying grades of fascination as they pressed their mouths together.

“Oh, gross,” Stan giggled from the hammock. Richie found his own eyes wander towards Eddie’s face. His mouth had gone slack, and his pupils were blown. That was probably due to the weed.

Then Beverly leaned away from Bill and back towards Richie. He quickly looked at the floor before turning to grin at her. She quirked an eyebrow at him, a question, and Richie shrugged. Sure.

She took another hit of the blunt and put her hand back on his knee. Her nails were painted sky blue.

“Oh, my god,” Mike gasped, and Richie thought that Mike actually was a little bit high.

Beverly’s lips were warm, but the whole thing really didn’t feel as sensual as she and Bill had made it look. Richie inhaled the smoke and let Beverly be the one to lean back and end it. Head a bit fuzzy, he turned back towards his friends.

“Eddie?” he asked. Eddie, who was red in the face, laughed. Richie wiggled his eyebrows at Mike, ignoring the warmth deep in his stomach.

“I think I’ll stick to the smoking thing,” Mike said. Eddie was still laughing and still looking at Richie.

Something tugged on Richie’s shirt sleeve. Bill was leaning over Beverly’s lap, eyes glassy and wide. He didn’t seem pissed or anything about what had just happened between Richie and his girlfriend, which made Richie nervous for a reason he couldn’t quite explain.

“So, what did Mr. Jackson want?” Bill asked. Beverly laughed overhead at something Ben was saying about some History project he’d gotten an A on.

“Huh?” Richie asked, his thoughts justifiably murky.

“When he asked you to stay back? Before?”

“Oh,” Richie said, as if he could remember anything past five minutes ago at any given time. He squinted, trying to recall the details. “Some bullshit about how I’m the smartest kid in his class or something.” Mike offered him the blunt, and he took it. “He was totally coming onto me.”

“He said that he was c-coming onto you?” Bill frowned.

“No. I read it.” Richie waved his hand. “In his body language.”

Bill pulled a face. “In Mr. Jackson’s body language?”

Richie inhaled deeply, feeling the sparks heat up his lungs.

“Listen,” he sighed after a moment. “He was just being super weird. Like he’d watched too many after-school specials.”

“You don’t think you’re smart?” Bill asked. Beverly’s eyes flickered towards Richie, but she kept up her conversation with Ben, idly playing with her boyfriend’s hair as she did so.

Richie looked at said boyfriend like he was crazy. “Have we not been in the same class since we were in diapers? There’s not a test out there I haven’t tanked.” 

Bill shrugged. “I don’t think you’re stupid, though. And I really don’t think Mr. Jackson was hitting on you. He could g-get arrested for something like that.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t risk it all for a chance at this?” Richie asked, running his hand down his chest towards his crotch.

Bill pulled a face and said, “Gross,” but Richie could tell he thought it was funny.

“Rich, come on,” Beverly said suddenly, pushing Bill out of her lap and getting to her feet. Richie looked up at her, mouth hanging open. Her hair, tied up in a bun atop her head, was glowing.

“Where are we going?”

“We gotta show ‘em,” she said cryptically, eyebrows raised despite her heavy eyelids. “The thing we’ve been working on.”

“Oh, fuck! Okay.” Richie scrambled to his feet as Beverly retrieved the cassette player from the far shelf.

“What is this…?” Mike was saying, looking around at the disruption in slow-motion. Richie nudged the hammock with his knee, waking a dozing Stan.

“Stan. Wake up, dude. You gotta clear out. Bev and I are about to blow your mind.”

Obediently and blinking heavily, Stan crawled out of the hammock and replaced Beverly in the circle. He didn’t look too with it. Richie then crowded the group of them up against the wall so as to give Beverly and he ample space to operate.

“Got it!” Beverly called from behind him. She pressed stop on the player and gestured for Richie to get into position. Then she pressed play and joined him in the center of the small room. They stood back to back, their heads bowed as _ Lead Me On _ by Teena Marie came to an end, their arms hanging limply at their sides.

Then, the synth of the truly classic song from the _ Top Gun _ soundtrack, which Richie owned on cassette for no reason at all, began to play. And Beverly and Richie began to dance.

“_ What is happening? _” Stan whispered in horror. In unison, Richie and Beverly slowly crouched towards the floor, arms outstretched on either side of them. Well, Richie assumed it was in unison. His eyes were closed. That was a part of it.

“I… don’t know…” Bill said. He just sounded mistified.

The clubhouse was about the same size as Beverly’s bedroom, so it all worked out pretty well. When the two of them linked arms and twisted to the words, _ watching in slow motion as you turn to me and say _, he glanced at Stan, who had drawn into himself, his knees pulled up to his chest.

_ Take my breath away! _

Eddie and Mike were laughing beside him. Ben was red in the face.

Roughly a minute later, they ended the dance back in the center of the room with their foreheads on each other’s shoulders, breathing heavily and waiting for applause. Only Mike and Eddie gave it to them.

“_ This _ is what you’re doing when you hang out?” Bill asked. Richie pat Beverly’s arm and the two of them stood up straight.

“I know,” he said, draping his arm around Bev’s shoulders and pulling her close. “I’m a _ way _ better boyfriend than you.”

Bill just laughed, and part of Richie was offended. But he moved past it pretty quickly, releasing Bev and collapsing on the floor between Eddie and Stan. There hadn’t been a big space between them to begin with, causing Stan to go, “Argh!” and dive to the side, his hands covering his face. But Eddie didn’t budge an inch. This meant that Richie was practically on top of him, their legs tangled together, and it was nice. He closed his eyes and sunk into his friend’s side, deciding to go limp and just nap here. It was warm, here.

“That was really something,” Eddie said, laughter still tinging his voice. Richie could feel the vibrations of it through where their bodies were touching.

“Thanks,” Richie said. Usually he’d have something else to add, but not right now. His head felt like the static on TV, but not in an unpleasant way.

“You okay?” Eddie asked. When Richie didn’t answer, he poked his face. Richie hummed in response. “Are you asleep?”

“No, I’m not asleep.”

There was a pause in which it occurred to Richie that Eddie might tell him to move.

“Please don’t throw up on me,” Eddie said instead.

“Well, if you insist…” Richie could feel his own words heavy on his tongue. He decided he wouldn’t speak anymore, and dozed off to the sounds of his friends’ laughter and the passing thunderstorm.

Richie stared at his hands a lot when he was alone. His fingers were long and his knuckles were knobbly. Everytime he looked at them, they got worse. He looked like a goddamn skeleton. He knew he was eating enough. He was eating pretty much all the time. Stan’s dispensary had the best snacks, and Ben’s place hosted the best home-cooked meals. Then there was all the trash the losers bought with the pocket money they pooled together, and Eddie’s mom’s cupboards were always (ironically) bursting with health hazards abound. Richie kept waiting to grow outwards, but instead he just grew up. Big Bill was now lagging behind, Stanley was taller but grew steadily, not frantically shooting upwards overnight the way Richie seemed to. And poor Eds, he didn’t seem to be growing at all.

Richie wondered why Betty had picked the shortest of the losers for her venture into womanhood. Obviously Mike was out because every girl in their grade was secretly (or not so secretly) racist, which, by the way, their loss, because Mike was beefing up like nobody’s business. Bill was taken, of course, but Ben had lost a few pounds and was, you know, a sweetheart. Stan had his own thing going on, too. Stoic and silent but with a heart of gold. Wide shoulders. Had a bit of a perv vibe, maybe, but so did almost all the boys in their grade.

And, well, Richie. Although he hated his hands and didn’t know what to do with his limbs, he felt like more girls should be approaching him. They laughed at (some of) his jokes, they gave him goo-goo eyes in the hallways between classes. Dark, unruly hair was definitely in if the movies were anything to go by, and he thought girls dug a guy in unbuttoned plaid.

But then he would remember his whole personality, and the fact that he could never stop fidgeting, and just loved to say the wrong things and the wrong time (or couldn’t help himself from doing so), and got spots right on the tip of his nose so he looked like fucking Rudolph.

So, on the day of Eddie’s outing with Betty Ripsom, Richie was back in the clubhouse. It wasn’t raining outside so the leaks were no longer a factor, and Bill and Bev were nowhere around, either. He dropped his magazine onto his chest and lit another cigarette, leaning out of the hammock to look at the remaining losers, who were sat in a circle playing the nerd card game of the week. Something to do with dwarves.

“Where’d he say they were going?”

“Who?” asked Ben, absently looking through his hand.

Richie exhaled, switching the cigarette from one hand to the other. “Eds and his hot date.”

Ben shrugged. He clearly could not be less invested in Eddie’s first ever official outing with a girl.

“Don’t ask me,” said Mike when Richie looked to him.

“Stan? You know where they were going?”

“Not really,” Stan said, not turning to look at him. “Why do you care?”

Richie tapped on the cloth of the hammock. “I’m bored.”

“You’re always bored.”

“You guys are boring.”

“Uh-huh.”

Richie inhaled his cigarette. In passing, he wished he would choke on the smoke and die. Instead, he swung the hammock so he could poke Stan’s curly head.

“Are you gonna invite me in on your little game or what?”

“Just don’t blow that smoke in my face,” Stan said.

“What, like this?” Richie asked, and blew.

Stan coughed, and Richie grinned, toppling out of the hammock.

“There should be a no smoking rule!” Stan said, waving his hand in front of his face as Richie grinned at him, the cigarette sticking out and upwards from between his lips.

“That’s not what you were saying the other night.”

“That was a special occasion.”

“The special occasion being Stoner Stan coming into his own,” Richie posited.

Stan looked him dead in the eye and said, “Don’t ever call me that again.”

“Yeah, but Ben would never ban smoking in here,” Mike teased with a knowing smirk. Ben grew slightly pinker as he dealt out the cards and Stan laughed, too.

Richie would be the first to taunt anyone about a misplaced crush, but within the group it felt different. Especially since Bev and Bill were so obviously gonna date forever and have a thousand children.

He put out his cigarette between the floorboards and took the cards a grateful Ben was handing to him.

“Alright,” he said, peering at the illustrations in his hand, “which one of you dwarven fuckers is trying to steal my gold?”

Richie didn’t hear from Eddie until the next day. None of the Losers did. They had already agreed to go to the quarry for lunch, so when Richie rode past Eddie’s house and was informed that Eddie was not there, he began to panic. 

“You think they fucked?” he asked, cycling a circle around Bill. 

“What?” Bill laughed. His dad had given him his old Ray-Bans, and he looked unfairly cool. “No.”

Richie persisted. “Just ‘cause you’re such a virgin, doesn’t mean we all are.”

“You are, though,” Bill pointed out, shaking his hair out of his face. There was a warm breeze in the air today, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was perfect quarry weather, but they weren’t at the quarry yet — Richie was sweating buckets, his palms slipping on his handlebars. As they rode out of the suburbs and onto the forest trail, he stopped circling Bill and fell in beside him.

“And you…?” he tried.

“Shut up, Richie.”

A small stone from the path got caught in his wheel and hit him on the knee. “I’m getting antsy, man. I’m running out of time.”

Bill frowned at him. “Out of time for wh-what?”

“Do I really have to say it? First, it’ll be Eddie, and honestly, who saw that coming? Next thing you know, Stanley’s getting down and dirty with a Catholic girl from one town over in a shitty Romeo-and-Juliet ripoff and Ben gets a handy from some librarian chick at nerd-camp! What about Richie, Bill? When is it Richie’s turn?”

“You’re way too invested in the group’s sex lives,” Bill said, sounding genuinely concerned.

“You’re way too _ uninvested _. You’re supposed to be the leader. What about when Eddie gets Betty pregnant, shotgun wedding, and our whole group falls to shit?”

“Eddie’s n-not gonna get Betty pregnant. I bet they didn’t even hold hands. Eddie’s p-p-probably still scared of c-cooties.”

Finally. Finally Bill was saying something Richie wanted to hear.

“Touché, Big B. Touché.”

“We kissed,” Eddie admitted to the group as soon as Richie and Bill arrived. Apparently he’d left his house right just before Richie stopped by because _ apparently _ Richie had been late. But that was old news, now. The temperature was rising, they weren’t in the shade and they didn’t seem to be heading into the water anytime soon, and Richie might just claim a heat stroke in order to get away from this situation. But the Losers stayed put, standing amongst the reeds in various stages of undress and staring at Eddie in shock.

“You _ what _?” Stan asked. He was wearing the khaki fishing hat that made him look like a grandma.

Eddie shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Just a little.”

“How was it?” Beverly asked, eyes wide, smile slowly growing.

“Wet,” Eddie said, wrinkling his nose.

“Was there tongue?” Beverly pushed, leaning forward. “Oh my god!” she gasped when Eddie didn’t answer at once.

Richie was going to kill Bill. When he looked to his side, Bill looked like he knew that his death was imminent. He offered Richie a weak smile.

“It was weird, okay?” Eddie was saying. “Like, I’d kissed girls before—“

“Bullshit,” Bill said in a gasp, suddenly forgetting his shortened life-span.

“Britanny McLeary does not count,” Stan agreed. “That was _ kindergarten _.”

“_ —but _,” Eddie continued, ignoring them, “I really didn’t know it would be that… slippery.”

“You put your mouth on someone else’s mouth,” Stan laughed. “Of course it’s _ slippery _!”

“You guys are _ so _ unromantic,” Beverly said. “Who started it?”

Eddie’s eyes darted from side-to-side, and he adjusted his visor. “She did.”

Richie thanked the heavens for small mercies.

“At first, I mean,” Eddie added then.

Bugs in Maine weren’t typically dangerous, and Richie wasn’t allergic to wasps or bees. The only insects in sight today were mosquitoes and ants. He wished he would get bitten by something extremely poisonous so he could get carried away from this conversation. A couple of days in a hospital didn’t sound too bad. Maybe there was a snake nearby...

Suddenly, he became aware that everyone was looking at him.

“What?”

“No high five?” Mike asked. “No gross comment?” It _ was _ Richie’s M.O.

“Come back to me when you’ve gotten to second base. _ Under _ the shirt,” he clarified. Who needed poisonous insects? He could just walk into the lake and drown himself. At least then he’d stop sweating.

“Okay…” Bill said, and Beverly began to ask about the date more in detail. Richie did his best to pretend to be interested, even as everyone else’s interest waned. Stan saw a cool bird or whatever and started explaining its whole deal to Bill, so the two of them waded off into the lake with binoculars. Eddie and Bev kept talking. Mike and Ben were laughing about something else to themselves, also heading into the water, but Richie plopped himself down on a rock and listened dutifully on to Eddie and Betty’s walk through town and stop for smoothies and _ exhausting _ fucking shared interest in the goddamn pharmaceutical industry.

“_ God _. No offense, Eddie, but I’m glad I’m not Betty. Date night sounds so fucking boring.”

“Well, you weren’t there,” Eddie said. He had pulled off his t-shirt, and now he stopped rigorously applying sunscreen to answer him, pale blotches spread across his arm.

“A-fucking-men,” Richie said. “She probably just sucked your face to get you to shut up.”

“Why do you keep doing this?” Eddie asked, turning to face him. He had sunscreen on his nose, too. For a moment, Richie forgot what they were even talking about.

“Doing what?”

“_ Belittling _ me.”

“Eds, baby, don’t worry about it. That growth spurt is going to come through some day.”

“You—“ Eddie said, growing red. He looked adorable in his little green swimming trunks. Then he threw his tennis shoe at him.

“Holy shit!” Richie laughed, dodging it easily. Bill and Stan turned to look from the water.

“All you ever talk about is girls and vaginas and gross shit like that, and suddenly it’s all bullshit?” Eddie demanded, voice getting higher and higher as he spoke.

“Vaginas aren’t gross, Eds,” Richie explained patiently. “They’re miraculous, beautiful things. Your mom’s—“

“Shut up about my mom’s vagina!”

“Dude, dude,” Richie said, swinging his legs over the rock to level with him. “I’m just ribbing you, okay? It’s cool, man. I’m really proud of you for sticking your tongue down some girl’s throat. That took guts. Especially from you.”

There was a beat where all that could be heard was the gentle lapping of water and breeze through the reeds. The whole group was quiet, and it made Richie’s face feel warm.

“Thank you,” Eddie said finally. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

Richie snorted, unable to help himself.

“You’re such a freak, Kapsbrak.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Eddie replied, but there was no malice to it.

“Every night,” Richie assured him, and Eddie pulled a face. Everything returned to normal. If Bill was looking at Richie oddly, Richie pretended not to notice.

Richie never spent a lot of time at home. He always found somewhere else to be: usually either the arcade or one of the loser’s places, when they weren’t at the hide-out or by the river. Bev’s was his favourite. Her aunt was into some real hippie-dippie shit and did yoga in the living room. If she was in a particularly open mood she would offer them weed and talk about all the different dimensions she’d visited during meditation. It was fucking hilarious.

But she wasn’t always around, either, so saying he liked Bev’s for her aunt’s sake would be a lie. Beverly was a cool chick, when it came down to it, and hanging with her wasn’t like hanging out with the other losers. Richie couldn’t put his finger on why. She just seemed to get stuff.

Bill was a real hero about it. He’d come over one morning and found Rich and Bev asleep together on the living room floor and not batted an eyelid. Actually, Richie didn’t know if he was a hero or just plain stupid. If he had a girl like Beverly Marsh, easily one of the hottest girls in their grade (heck, probably even in the entire school), and found her snuggling with some guy, reeking of weed, he didn’t know what he’d do.

He woke up at Bev’s house the second day of summer school and knew, just knew he was late even before he even put his glasses on to read the clock on the wall. They had fallen asleep in the living room, sprawled out on the sofas with the windows wide open due to the heat. During the night aunt Lucy had draped bed sheets over them, and Richie now fell smack onto the shag carpet in an effort to untangle himself.

“Huh?” Beverly mumbled, the side of her face red with indents from sofa creases.

“Shit, fuck, crap,” Richie muttered, kicking the blankets off of him. “Motherfucker!” Then, to a bleary-eyed Bev, “I’m late!”

“You’re always late,” Beverly yawned, waving a hand.

That wasn’t untrue, but yesterday Richie had been early by five minutes and instead of feeling like a kiss-ass, he’d just felt proud.

He hopped around the house, looking for his belongings he’d left stranded in different mystery locations, as if yesterday’s Richie revelled in making present Richie suffer. One of his shoes, for example, was in the bathroom.

“Have fun,” Beverly called after him as he raced towards the front door. He was going to have to stop by his own house to grab his books.

Outside, Bill was leaning his bike against the garage door. He blinked upon seeing Richie, but there was no time for small-talk.

“Bye, Bill,” he said as he hopped onto his own bike, strategically placed against the front hedges.

Beverly lived on the other side of town, so Richie would ride along the kissing bridge pretty much daily. He always, without fail, found himself casting glances towards the letters he had etched there four summers ago. Today, however, he kept his eyes on the road. Eddie and Betty had a second date scheduled for tomorrow.

Summer school had plenty of downsides, besides the obvious _ school _ in _ summer _ deal. One of these downsides was Betty Ripson, also in attendance, who seemed to believe they were now acquaintances or even _ friends _ just because she had sucked face with Eddie. She sat nearby, and kept throwing glances his way as if she wanted to say something. Richie, of course, studiously ignored her glances, perhaps paying more attention to a blackboard than ever before. Mr. J’s new teaching methods might be helping, too. He said that, since there were fewer of them in class, he would make the whole thing more interactive. He had made flashcards, and he handed them out before suggesting a game where one student had to make everyone else guess what their flashcard said. Richie felt like he was on fucking Sesame Street.

Mr. J wasn’t as strict as he was during the school year, either. Richie kept seeing him hiding smiles, and every so often he’d share a personal story, which was a good break from the syllabus. It was like the guy actually enjoyed being stuck in muggy classroom with a room full of sweaty teens instead of being on the beach with whatever the opposite of a twink was. Because Mr. J was obviously the twink.

But Mr. J didn’t teach the whole morning, and as soon as Mrs. Clarke replaced him Richie could feel his focus start to wane, the lecture slipping through his thoughts and pooling in his sweaty hands. He wanted to do well, even though he might not admit it aloud, but he had no idea how anyone else in the room could sit through this drivel, which was just as interesting as it had been through the school year. 

But, to his credit, it wasn’t like everyone was paying rapt attention. Donnie Lerman was eating his own snot in the third row, and Brenda Fitzpatrick was untangling her dark hair, every so often snapping off stray strands and dropping them on the floor. Richie pulled a face as he witnessed this, and then accidentally met Betty’s eye. She gave him a look, like, _ I know, right? _ Richie lowered his gaze to his doodle-filled page without returning the gesture.

Why wasn’t Ben here? Ben had been stuck in here every other summer. Why’d he have to grow a brain this year, the year of Richie’s unjust imprisonment? Hell, any one of them should have taken the bullet for him. Made sure he didn’t kill himself out of boredom. That’s what friends were for, right?

“Class dismissed. Don’t forget to bring your Biology tests from over the year tomorrow.”

As if Richie had ever kept any of his tests in his life.

“Who even keeps their tests?” Betty said. Richie looked up, and she was definitely talking to him. Her books were already in her bag, her bag already on her shoulder.

Richie frowned at her. “We’re not friends.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise. Instead of sticking around, Richie collected his things in his arms and marched out of the classroom, stuffing his notepad into his backpack as he walked. 

He was surprised to see Eddie waiting for him outside, and immediately felt guilty about how much of a dick he was being to poor Ripsom. Eddie was wearing a stupid visor and short shorts that made Richie’s lips tug into a grin in spite of everything.

“You look like my grandma,” he said as soon as he reached him, smacking the rim of the cap so that it fell into Eddie’s eyes. 

“Fuck off, asshole,” was Eddie’s response as he rightened it. Then his gaze caught on something behind Richie, and his expression changed. Richie turned to see what he was looking at, but he should have known. Betty waved at them and Richie’s pulse quickened. When she kept walking in the opposite direction, his relief was nauseating.

He faced Eddie once more, hoping nothing showed in his face. Eddie’s face seemed perfectly casual, thank god; he wasn’t blushing or smiling in that stupid way some people did around school, the way Bill did around Beverly. So, that was a small comfort.

“I’m here to tell you we’re going to the pool,” Eddie said. “I already got my stuff.”

“We?”

“Yeah, the Losers,” Eddie said, because it was obvious. Richie pushed his glasses further up his nose.

“I was just wondering if everyone was coming.”

“Everyone’s coming.”

“Cool.”

“Uhuh…” Eddie raked Richie’s body with his eyes and pulled a face. “God, you’re sweating buckets. Your shirt has changed color.”

Richie shrugged. “The AC broke. Here, Eddie. Let me give you a hug—“

“Don’t you dare touch me!” Eddie said, jumping away and into the road.

Richie made grabby hands at him, following him down the empty street and putting on an ogre-inspired voice to say, “You’ll fit nicely under my armpit!”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Just one hug, Eds!” Richie continued.

“I _ will _ run,” Eddie told him, the start of a laugh coloring his voice.

“But you can’t hide!” Richie said. He broke out into a run and Eddie yelped, making a break for one of the trees in front of the school. He hid behind it and Richie peered around the trunk, feeling giddy and stupid and out of control.

“Come here, let me _ hold you _ and _ squeeze you _ with my gross, sweaty…” he trailed off. Mrs. Clarke was coming out of the school and throwing a curious glance their way. Richie cleared his throat and suddenly wished he were dead, or at least somewhere far away from here.

“Shit, I gotta go grab my bike,” he said, and Eddie emerged from behind the tree with caution.

Richie power-walked past Mrs. Clarke with his head down, and didn’t attempt to hug Eddie the whole way back to his house.

His mom was home, and Eddie stayed downstairs making small talk, which was cool, ‘cause Richie’s mom adored Eddie. Richie also knew that Eddie firmly believed his bedroom was a health hazard, and wouldn’t step inside unless absolutely necessary, so he was probably glad to stay in the relatively safe kitchen.

He gave himself a minute to breathe as soon as he was alone. He sat on his unmade bed and stared at his hands, flexing and unflexing his fingers. Then he sprung back into action. He switched his shorts for swimtrunks, grabbed a towel out of the closet and, after a moment’s deliberation, he changed his t-shirt for one less sweat-drenched.

He took the stairs two at a time and arrived in the kitchen with a jump and a yell, throwing his sweaty shirt at Eddie’s head.

“Richard!” his mom admonished, horrified, but it was worth it to see Eddie try his darndest not to cuss Richie out in front of an adult.

On their way through town towards the Derry Public Pool, Eddie bought them both ice-creams. They always got ice-cream together. It was their thing; even though things seemed weird between them lately, this meant that they were okay.

A week later, Eddie burst into his room. That was how Richie knew it was serious. 

Richie was inexplicably embarrassed that he was doing something as menial as flipping through a _ Dungeons and Dragons _ magazine, upon Eddie’s dramatic entrance, but the article on the growing popularity of the Bard class stayed clenched in his fists.

“Jesus fuck,” Richie said. “Ever heard of knocking?”

Eddie closed the door behind him and Richie’s stomach swooped.

“Richie, I need your help.”

“Why? Having trouble warming up?” Richie asked, rubbing his hands together. Eddie looked down at his own crotch, then shook his head violently, blinking hard.

“What the fuck? No. Betty’s cousin’s in town and she’s not allowed to leave her alone all afternoon.”

“Jeez, you stink. Are you wearing your mom’s perfume, ‘cause you smell like peroxide and dusty old vagina.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Sorry, I got lost in how shiny your hair is.”

Eddie pat his well-gelled hair self-consciously, then quickly shook his head like a machine about to blow.

“Richie. Please.”

Fuck.

Richie sprung out of bed and put his finger up to Eddie’s nose, levelling his eyes with his. “If she’s not a solid _ six _, I’m walking.”

“Thank you,” Eddie breathed, closing his eyes in relief.

“That’s what your mom said last night, after I–”

“I get it,” Eddie cut him off. “Are you gonna get changed?”

“Give me a fucking second, will you? Until now, my plans for tonight consisted of me, Meg Ryan,” he bent down to pick something out from under his bed, “and this old sock.”

Eddie’s eyes grew wide. “Richie, don’t you–”

Richie threw the sock at him. Eddie gagged.

“God, it was _ scratchy _. I fucking hate you so fucking much. Do you have no clean clothes?” He was now looking towards Richie’s wardrobe, the door hanging open to reveal that it was empty inside.

“Sorr-ee my mom skipped laundry day,” Richie said dryly, doing jazz hands.

“Laundry _ month _, you mean,” Eddie said, only now perceiving the amount of clothes on Richie’s floor. “Richie, do you not know how to work the washing machine?”

“The fuck would I know that for?” Richie asked, but he was kneeling on the carpet and rummaging through the piles of disregarded clothing.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie prayed, dodging a t-shirt with a stain Richie didn’t recall getting. “If you throw another one of your jizz socks at me, I-I swear to _ god-- _”

“How’s this? Good enough for your highness?” Richie held up a shirt that had a sunset printed on it, dark silhouettes of palm trees lining the bottom.

Eddie didn’t seem to hear him; he was shaking out another one. He looked around the room for something, then lunged for a bottle of cologne Richie had gotten as a gift some Christmas and never used. Richie lost count of the amount of times Eddie sprayed the shirt, but soon the both of them were struggling for breath through a cloud of Winter Musk.

“Oh, I ruined it. I ruined it!” Eddie gasped.

“Give me that,” Richie snatched it off of him and threw it out the open window. Eddie watched with wide eyes but chose to say nothing.

“Where’s your shirt with the fish on it?” he asked, voice thick. “The blue one?”

“That one? Hm…” he moved past Eddie and pulled it out of the bottom of his wardrobe, where the clothes he hadn’t bothered to put on a hanger lay in an unceremonious heap. This shirt was a bluey-green speckled in colorful fish. It was supposed to look like an aquarium, or the ocean or some shit. “You’re in luck! It’s clean!”

“Yeah, I like that one,” Eddie nodded.

Richie pulled off his Roadrunner t-shirt and Eddie moved like a goddamn ninja, spraying deodorant under his arms as he did.

“You know, I’m feeling a little attacked right now,” Richie admitted, tugging on a less conspicuous t-shirt with a logo that read _ Marty’s Junkyard _. Eddie’s mind was clearly elsewhere.

“I said we’d meet them outside the theatre at four.”

“We seeing a movie?” Richie asked, slipping on the shirt over the tee. He was a layers man, always had been, always would be, even in one hundred degree heat. 

Eddie spraying him with deodorant was probably for the best.

“I think so, yeah.”

Better than soul-crushing smoothies, Richie allowed.

“Your glasses are disgusting,” Eddie said, and without further warning he took them right off of Richie’s face.

“Uh, Eds,” Richie blinked at the blob in front of them. “I kind of need those to see.”

“It’s a miracle you see anything at all with these. _ Christ _, Richie.”

And Eddie was a blur, footsteps hurrying away, Richie’s bedroom door opening and closing.

Richie edged himself towards where his bed was and sat down, his hands on either side of him.

He really did need those to see. When he showered without them on, he could barely make out where his own feet were. Not like assholes who complained about not being able to perfectly make out what was written on the blackboard or whatever the fuck. People who mixed up six and zero. No, Richie was reduced to blurs and blobs where he knew things must be.

Eddie came back in, stood in front of him and put Richie’s glasses back on.

“Better?”

Richie stared up at his shorter friend. Eddie wasn’t growing much taller, but he was changing. His dark eyebrows were way out of control. His cheekbones were stronger. His jaw, too. Little things. But still Eds.

“Yeah,” Richie replied.

Eddie swallowed. Then, he briskly turned away.

“We’re going to be late.”

“Sorry your mail-order wingman wasn’t ready in time,” Richie muttered, following Eddie out of his bedroom and down the flight of stairs. “Whatchu clean ‘em with?”

Eddie tossed him a look over his shoulder. “_ Soap _, you Neanderthal.”

“My mom buys me wipes,” Richie said defensively.

The last time she’d bought him wipes for his glasses was a while ago, but it was most likely his own fault for not reminding her.

In the end, they weren’t late, but early. The two of them stood awkwardly in front of the picture house, squinting in the summer sun with their hands on their hips. Eddie kept checking his watch, clearly nervous, so Richie suggested a game of Street Fighter while they waited, hoping to calm his friend down. After a moment’s hesitation, Eddie accepted, and as they entered the arcade, Richie had to repeat a mantra in his head the whole time: _ Bowers is in jail, Bowers is in jail _ , _ Bowers is in jail _.

As they played, Richie realized that he was nervous about the afternoon ahead, too. Shit. He found his mind wandering from the game, his reaction speed degrading considerably, and Eddie nattering on about how much better at the game he was than Richie didn’t help matters. Why had he agreed to this? How fucked in the head was he, exactly? Was it too late to fake diarrhea and make a run for it?

“Shit, there they are,” Eddie said, suddenly letting go of his joystick and immediately making his way out of the arcade. Richie continued to pummel Eddie’s character for another few seconds, then kicked the machine and ran to catch up with him.

Eddie waved to the girls on the other side of the street.

“A six?” he asked Richie as Betty and her cousin crossed towards them.

Betty Ripsom’s cousin was cool, that much was apparent. While Betty wore a baby-blue dress speckled in flowers, her cousin had long, dirty blonde hair that she hadn’t brushed, a _ The Queen Is Dead _ t-shirt and ripped denim shorts. As they got closer, Richie saw that she had an actual _ nose ring _. So, already way cooler than any girl at their school – other than Bev, of course.

Richie’s hands started to sweat.

“Do you have eyes?” he hissed in his friend’s ear. “She’s a solid eight and a half.”

“Oh,” said Betty as soon as they arrived. “You asked Richie?”

_ I’m not thrilled either, sister. _He shrugged and said, “Yeah, he practically begged me to help out. Hands and knees.”

Eddie didn’t look at him. “I did not beg,” he assured her. Richie raised his eyebrows behind him, putting his hands in his pockets.

Betty sighed and forced a smile. 

“Janice, this is Eddie, and this… this is Richie.”

“Hi, how are you?” Eddie asked, and he sounded so pleasant Richie wanted to scream. 

It just got worse from there. Eddie proved himself to be incredibly adept at small-talk, and he managed to learn where Janice was from (Portland) and how long she would be in Derry (a week) with surprising ease. Richie kept his mouth closed, ignoring the looks Betty was giving him, right up until Eddie volunteered them both to buy the tickets.

“Dude, I didn’t bring any money,” Richie muttered as Eddie dragged him away. His friend looked at him in disbelief.

“I told you we were going to a movie!”

“It all happened so fast! And I spent all my money last night on condoms for your mom.”

Eddie looked back at the girls, panicked that they might have heard. When he deduced that the coast was clear, he hissed, “Well I’m not telling them, _ you _ tell them.”

“Fine!” Worst case scenario, he was sent home in shame. He plodded back towards the girls while Eddie kept their place in line and announced that he had forgotten his wallet, pulling a face that he hoped said, _ Bummer _. He didn’t put his whole soul into it, though. Betty did not look impressed, but Janice rose to the occasion, pulling a twenty dollar note out of a hefty purse with ease.

“My dad gave me spending money for the holidays,” she explained.

“So I get to keep the change?” Richie asked. Janice laughed, and he wished she wouldn’t.

During the movie, he kept sneaking glances at Janice. There was no one else to really sneak glances at; on his other side sat this old guy who kept falling into coughing fits that made Richie want to just get up and leave. Everytime the old man coughed, Jan looked at him like, _ I know _ . Richie offered her weak smiles in return before turning back to the screen with determination. He _ would _ enjoy this movie, he decided. He might as well get something out of this whole deal.

Janice gripped his arm once or twice, and he tried to be cool about it. He was usually pretty good with scary movies. Whenever he’d get freaked, he’d just start talking his way through it with whichever of the Losers had the misfortune to be seated next to him at the time. But Eddie was two seats away, and Richie wasn’t in the mood to make any new friends, so he withstood the realistic dinosaurs and body parts and screaming (and Janice’s fingernails digging into his arm) with little to no comment. Sure, there were a couple of moments where Richie closed his eyes tightly, but all in all, he got through the movie without spending too much time wondering if Betty was gripping onto Eddie’s arm, too. That meant it was a good movie.

He wanted to talk to Eddie about it all when they got out. About the movie, not about Betty or Janice or any of that stuff. He just wanted the day to be over. If it were tomorrow already, then he’d be happy. But, no. As soon as they came out of the theatre, Betty, who was holding onto Eddie’s arm like it was a lifeline, suggested they go get smoothies at their favorite place!

Despite feeling as if he had been punched in the gut, Richie still found himself raising his eyebrows at his friend.

“Not. A. Word,” Eddie mouthed. Richie smiled, even though he didn’t feel like it.

“Richie was _ totally _ scared,” Janice said, her bright red nails tapping on her smoothie straw.

“I wasn’t!” Richie huffed, leaning back in the booth. The lights in this place were way too bright, and the jukebox didn’t have anything worth listening to. Betty had picked an old song that kept saying, _ Eddie My Love _, and Eddie had turned bright red but said nothing. Richie had yet to touch his smoothie.

“You had your eyes closed!” Janice laughed.

“I was tired!” Richie said, forcing an elaborate yawn and stretching his arms over his head. Eddie moved to the side to avoid getting hit when Richie dropped it again. The ball in Richie’s throat got bigger.

“I like your shirt,” Eddie said to Janice, changing the subject. “That’s a great record.”

“Oh, thanks! This shirt is my dad’s. He’s a total music nut— I’m only allowed to listen to music he approves of.”

“At least The Smiths aren’t awful,” Eddie supplied. Richie knew for a fact that Eddie did not care for the Smiths. He kept his eyes on his untouched smoothie and said nothing.

“No, I love them. Morrissey is _ so _ dreamy. What music do you listen to?”

Richie felt eyes on him, and he looked up. Janice was wearing a lot of eye make-up, which just made her blue eyes look bigger. She blinked at him innocently, waiting for an answer.

“Oh, nothing, really. Not really a music guy.”

Eddie scoffed beside him. Then, he coughed a cough that sounded like _ Top Gun _. Richie kicked him under the table.

“That’s impossible,” Janice was laughing. “You can’t _ not _ be a music guy. There’s no such thing.”

She was flirting with him. Holy fuck, she was flirting with him.

“He’s obsessed with Blondie,” Eddie supplied when Richie said nothing.

“Oh, they’re _ so _ good! I _ love _ Waiting By The Telephone.”

Richie shifted in his seat. “Yeah, I don’t really like that one.”

“Oh,” Janice blinked. “Okay.”

Eddie cleared his throat. “I’m really into The Cure.”

Janice’s gaze lingered on Richie for a moment longer, and then she turned to Eddie. “They’re alright,” she shrugged.

“_ Alright _ ?” Eddie repeated, gobsmacked. “They’re fucking incredible.” Betty laughed. “Did you listen to The Head On The Door? Wish! _ Wish _!” he said again. “Come on, you can’t say that Wish wasn’t revolutionary.”

“Revolutionary how?” Janice smirked. This is the conversation Richie could be having, the one he had been invited into. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“Holy shit.” Eddie turned to Betty. “Is she serious? Are you serious right now?”

Janice shrugged. “I guess I just like my leading men to… I don’t know.” She smiled and shrugged again. “Be men.”

Richie looked up from his hands. Eddie was frowning.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The whole make-up thing? He doesn’t need it, now that he’s not goth, or whatever. I mean, I got it when David Bowie was doing it, you know? It was this big performance thing, I guess. But, I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem necessary anymore. The points been made, you know? We can move on.”

Eddie scoffed derisively. “Then you obviously _ didn’t _ get it when David Bowie was doing it. His whole thing was about how everyone should be themselves! If Robert Smith wants to wear… what is it? Eyeshadow? Then he should. Gender, sexuality –” Richie felt his heart stop, “it’s all being challenged. I bet that in ten years, everyone’s going to dress however they want, no matter what gender they are. Probably not in Derry,” he added meekly after a pause.

Janice looked as if she was going to say something, but then she shook her head. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

“And their music _ is _ good,” he insisted.

“Okay!” she laughed.

“Betty, you agree with me, right? The Cure is a great band?”

“I don’t really know them,” Betty admitted. 

“_ God _ ,” Eddie huffed. Richie waited to be called in for backup, but it never came. Instead, Eddie said, “Well, you have to check them out. Give _ Wish _ a listen, at least. You have to listen to the whole thing, in order, the songs aren’t as good on their own. You have to get into the right headspace.”

Then, the subject was moved away from the dicier topics by Betty, probably to stop Eddie from lecturing her city girl cousin too hard. Richie sat beside them in silence, trying to digest all that Eddie had just spurted out. Where the fuck had his little speech come from? Had Richie missed something when David Bowie sang about the Man on Mars or whatever the fuck? Gender and sexuality? What the fuck was Eddie _ on _? And how come he’d never said any of that shit to Richie, or with any of the Losers around?

Everytime he looked at the boy in question, it was clear that no matter what nonsense he had just spouted to get Janice to shut up, he was still only interested in making Betty laugh, or looking at Betty. Meanwhile, the sick feeling in Richie’s stomach worsened, the tightness in his chest squeezing his heart. He tapped on the glass of his smoothie and watched Eddie outgrow him. 

The second he heard the phrase, “Stanford might be _ too _ hard to get into,” he dropped his head onto the table with a _ thunk _. Both girls jumped – Janice even shrieked a little.

“Is he... okay?” she asked.

“He’s fine, he’s just an asshole.”

Richie took a deep breath and sat up, three faces blinking at him. He knew Eddie well enough to notice the twitch of his nose that meant he was annoyed. Richie swallowed and scooted out of the booth, feeling in his shorts pockets for a cigarette. “I’m gonna go get some air,” he muttered before tumbling out of the diner, the muggy summer evening immediately enveloping him in a suffocating hug.

He wandered across the parking lot, thumbing at his crappy lighter. When a flame finally burst from it, he dropped his cigarette.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath as he picked it up. He might just bounce. It’s not like they needed him in there. He had single-handedly discovered fourth-wheeling. Maybe Bev was at home. Maybe aunt Lucy had made special brownies.

“Hey. You alright?”

Richie threw his head back in exasperation, then turned to face Janice, who had followed him out into the parking lot with a look of concern so earnest it made Richie want to kill himself.

“God, can you just stop?” His voice was loud, louder than he’d expected it to be. “I’m not interested, alright?”

She was beside him now. She blinked at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Interested?”

Richie sighed in annoyance. “I don’t find you attractive! This double date is a bust!”

She stood in shock. “You don’t find me…” she trailed off, then straightened up. “You _ are _ an asshole, aren’t you? I was just trying to be nice.”

“Well don’t,” Richie said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “There’s no fucking point to it.”

“I’m not nice because I have some kind of ulterior motive,” Janice said.

Richie snorted, “Okay.”

“Oh my god. I don’t understand how my cousin could date anyone who was friends with someone like you.”

“And I frankly don’t understand why my friend is dating your lesbo cousin, so I guess we’re even.”

Janice gaped at him. A car drove past blasting Poison, too many teenagers crammed inside. It disappeared around the corner, sounds of laughter following them. “_ What _ is your problem?”

“Right now? You are. Jesus fuck, how are you still here? You _ cannot _ be that desperate.”

“To fuck you? Hopefully, no one ever is. Good night.”

Richie made the mistake of watching her head back towards the shop door. Eddie and Betty were standing there, mixed looks of surprise and horror on their faces. Janice’s head was ducked as she pushed between them, and Richie caught a glimpse of her wiping her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. Betty gave Richie one last look of horror before reentering the establishment, leaving Richie alone with Eddie under the lilac sky.

Richie realized his mouth was hanging open, as if his body were trying to apologize but his mind hadn’t caught up yet.

Eddie had never, ever looked at him the way he was looking at him now. So Richie did the only thing he could think to do. He left.

Eddie did not follow.

Richie didn’t go home, not at first. He started walking towards Bev’s place, but changed his mind half-way there. Stan probably wasn’t up to much, so he began to head towards Stan’s neighborhood with no real intention of visiting him, either.

It was dark by the time he made it home, so dark that at first he didn’t notice the figure sat on his porch steps. By the time he did, it was much too late to do a 180 and spend another night on Bev’s sofa.

“Did you have fun?” Eddie asked. His voice was dry, and the porch light wasn’t on, so Richie had a hard time reading his expression. He didn’t answer, to stay on the safe side. Instead, he ambled closer to the porch, a sick feeling of dread weighing down his every step.

Suddenly, when he was just a foot away, Eddie stood up. He stood taller than Richie, for once, elevated on the porch above him.

He looked furious.

“Did you have fun ruining this whole thing for me?” he said, voice starting to shake. “Was that your idea of a good fucking time?”

“I...”

“You were being an asshole, Richie. And not like you usually are. What the fuck was that? You know how to talk to girls! You manage with Bev just fine! So I can only assume that this whole clusterfuck of a situation was orchestrated specifically to piss me off!”

“Hey, I didn’t orchestrate anything! I didn’t know you were– I was doing _ you _ a favor, remember?”

“You call _ that _ a favor,” Eddie laughed bitterly. “I knew I should have asked Stan.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I-I don’t know! I thought you were jealous, I was trying to help you out.”

“Jealous?” Richie snorted. “Of Betty?”

“What? No, jealous of _ me _! You were going on about how I was gonna get laid before you—“

“I have gotten laid before you. I fucked your mom, remember?”

Eddie laughed again.

“You can’t be serious, can you? Not for one fucking second?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, does that _ bother _ you?”

“Yeah, actually!” Eddie said, his hands flying up. “Yes, it does bother me!”

“Great! Now that that’s all cleared up, I guess I’ll head inside.”

“Fucking go, then. See if I care.”

“I’m glad you don’t,” Richie said, climbing up the porch steps in spite of the fact that Eddie hadn’t bunched an inch. “I won’t have to feel sorry for poor little Eddie Kapsbrack anymore.”

“_ You _ feel sorry for _ me _?”

Richie reached Eddie’s step and tried to maneuver his way around him without touching him. Now on equal footing, he looked down at him as he said, “You’re never gonna grow over five feet, of course I feel sorry for you.”

Eddie practically vibrated with anger as he spluttered out, “A-a-at least my parents didn’t _ forget _ to pack lunches for me all the way through grade school.”

Richie froze where he was, mouth falling open. “At least my mother isn’t a fucking control freak who fucked with my head so badly I’m too fucking paranoid about STDs that I couldn’t even get my dick wet if I tried!”

Eddie stepped back, back hitting against the wooden fence. That was when Richie realized he had been leaning in closer. Eddie licked his lips – and Richie really wished he wouldn’t – then poked Richie square in the chest with such force that it actually hurt.

“At least I’m not gonna fucking _ die _ from an STD in some trash-filled alleyway before I’m twenty-one!”

Richie opened and closed his mouth, feeling for a moment like he’d forgotten how to breathe. Miraculously, he managed to step away, towards the front door.

“I’m done talking to you,” he said shortly, fiddling in his pockets for his keys.

“Richie Tozier, rendered speechless!” Eddie crooned from behind him. “Somebody pinch me, I must be _ fucking _ dreaming!”

“Fuck you,” Richie said, flipping him the bird and tumbling inside. He shut the door behind him with feeling, his heart hammering in his chest, his breaths short and watery.

It wasn’t until he was upstairs, furiously brushing his teeth while staring himself down in the bathroom mirror, that he started to cry.

  



	2. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there! i'm back and ready 2 party!  
you may have noticed that i changed the chapters from 2 to 3... that is because this fic is a self-indulgent monster i have no control over. i came to a natural division point and decided to vibe with it. and to think this was meant to be a 14k one shot... aha  
this chapter is a bit of a downer, which is why i think it took me so long to get through it. but it all gets better because i only vibe with happy endings.  
enjoy !!!

Over the next few days, Richie stayed in his bedroom. He kept the blinds down so that the sun wouldn’t beat on his window, and he didn’t change out of the  _ Scooby Doo _ pajamas with holes in the shirt collar. Sometimes he ate with his parents, who didn’t ask too many questions, but mostly he just took food up to his bedroom and wished he could cease to exist.

This was not like the time he fought with Bill and angrily wandered around Derry ready to seize the day, as if he had something to prove. He didn't want to see anyone or anything.

He didn’t like himself.

He was thumbing at his gameboy on the third day of his self-imposed exile when there was a soft knock on his window pane. It was open, and when he looked up he could see Beverly’s head peeking through underneath the blinds.

Richie blinked at her and said nothing.

“Hey,” she whispered, head chin resting on her folded arms. He had no idea what she could be standing on, but she seemed perfectly at ease. “Haven’t heard from you in a few days.”

“Oh,” said Richie. “It’s been that long?”

Beverly took this as an invitation to climb all the way inside, landing at the foot of his bed with ease. She always climbed through the window instead of entering through the front door. Richie had never asked about it, but he suspected she just didn’t want to deal with his parents.

She wore bike shorts with holes in them underneath denim high-waisters, a bright green top with a huge cartoon daisy on the front tucked into the waist. Richie recognized the shirt – he had helped Beverly cut off its sleeves and had gone a bit overboard. She had been banned from wearing it at school due to the fact that her pale ribs and lacy pink bra were visible under her arms, and Ben always kept his eyes very levelled on her face whenever she wore it. Richie thought she rarely looked cooler than when she was wearing that shirt, her key necklace resting on her chest.

“We— the Losers — we’re worried about you,” she said.

“Oh,” Richie replied. He probably didn’t look great (especially not compared to her), sitting in the dark in the middle of the day, surrounded by candy wrappers with his gameboy practically pressed to his face. “All of you are worried about me, are you?”

“Well, Eddie’s kind of MIA, too,” she smiled, running her hand along the footboard of his bed. Richie pulled up his feet to give her room to sit down, but she didn’t, instead walking over to his shelves and peering at the comic books messily crammed onto them. “But Bill’s got Eddie duty.”

“So your visit is just the luck of the draw.”

Beverly’s eyebrows drew together. “I volunteered,” Beverly said, a twinge of hurt in her voice that immediately made Richie feel guilty. “I wanted to come see you.”

He could feel her eyes studying his face intently, but he wouldn’t meet them. He turned his gameboy on and off, on and off, until she sighed and sat down on the floor with her back against his mattress.

Her red hair was collected into a bun, and from this angle Richie could only see her bare neck and odd strands caught in the chains of her necklaces. She then glanced back at him not once, but twice. She had really pretty eyes.

She took a deep breath.

“I want to break up with Bill.”

That got Richie’s attention. He set his gameboy down on the pillow beside him and sat upright.

“What? What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Beverly said quickly, shaking her head. “He didn’t do... anything.”

“You mean...?” Richie asked, spreading his knees apart and pointing towards his crotch. Beverly turned to see, and rolled her eyes.

“No! It has nothing to do with that.”

“But you’ve done stuff?” Richie prodded slyly.

“Stuff?” Beverly laughed, but her cheeks were tinging pink, and she turned back around.

Holy shit.

“Holy shit!” Richie clambered across the bed and belly flopped onto the mattress at her side, his feet knocking against his Predator poster. “You little minx!” he said, poking her freckled shoulder. “And Bill... Big Bill... Well, is he?”

“Richie...” Beverly said, but she still wasn’t looking him in the eye, instead incredibly focused on poking at a hole in her leggings.

“Fuck,” said Richie. “He’s hung, isn’t he?”

Her mouth fell open and she planted her palm on her face and shoved him away. “Shut up.”

“It’s a fucking pendulum, isn’t it?” Richie continued, undeterred, a shit-eating grin taking over his features. “More like Big Ben, amiright? Dong! Dong!”

Beverly covered her face with her hands.

“You have to stop.”

“I can’t believe he— the both of you — have been keeping this from me! From me!”

“You really can’t?”

Richie considered. “Touché.”

Beverly dropped her hands into her lap and sighed. Richie readjusted himself, propping himself up on his elbows.

“So…” he said, “you’re gonna break up with him, but it has nothing to do with the size of his wang.”

She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Of course it doesn’t.”

“Or his wang’s performance.”

“No,” she said patiently. “He’s just... it’s just... there’s something missing. I don’t...” She looked downwards and Richie noticed she was wearing mascara, her eyelashes clumped together in black. Her voice lowered to a whisper, she said, “I don’t think he sees me.”

“Of course he sees you. His eyesight’s way better than mine—“

“You know that’s not what I mean,” she interrupted, albeit patiently.

There was a pause in which Richie tried to find the right words to say, but because he was impatient or uncomfortable or both, he spoke before he managed to.

“Well, I’m sorry. That’s... a real bummer.”

Beverly turned to look at him, a sad but grateful smile on her face. “Very eloquent of you.”

“I had to make up for the rest of the conversation somehow,” he shrugged humbly. Then, he licked his lips. “Is there someone else?”

“You gonna make a move on me, Tozier?”

Richie pretended to consider. Their faces were awfully close. And he liked Beverly, really. He liked her a lot.

Richie shook his head. “No.”

Beverly smiled wider, much more relaxed. She shifted, turning her whole body so as to face him better.

“Do you want to tell me?” she asked. “What happened with Eddie?”

Richie said nothing for a moment.

“It’s stupid,” was what he finally decided on saying.

“Then it’s fixable, right?”

Fixable. Richie didn’t want to see Eddie at all right now. He thinks he’d attack him, actually. If he came through Richie’s bedroom door right now, Richie would attack him.

But he still saw Eddie in the future. Maybe not in the next week, but the next month by the latest. A future without Eddie just wasn’t any kind of future at all.

“I don’t know,” he said. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. “I said some shit. Did some shit. But it was his fault. I was just trying to help out. He asked me to help out. It’s stupid.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t really... like who I am. Right now.”

Beverly was quiet.

“Did Eddie say something—?”

“No, no.” Richie shook his head. “Eddie didn’t do anything. I fucked up. Some double date bullshit…” He pushed up his glasses to press his fingers to his eyelids.

“You two went on a double date?” Beverly sounded amused.

He rubbed his eyes so hard he saw stars. “Yeah, and it was fucking disastrous.”

“Of course it was! This was Eddie’s idea?”

“Yeah. He came over and begged me to help him out.”

“Well, in that case, I think this is Eddie’s fault,” Beverly concluded. Richie sat up, flinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Of course that wasn’t going to work.”

“‘Cause I’m such a fucking asshole?”

“No! No!” Beverly said quickly, putting her hands on Richie’s knees. “It’s just... you two, together... you’re a lot.”

“What do you mean, together?” Richie demanded.

Beverly was unperturbed, tugging at his pajama bottoms. “You’re like an angry old married couple, like the one who used to live down the hall from me and dad,” she said conversationally. “Always arguing about everything… you drive Stan crazy. The rest of us are used to it. But to unleash that on two poor, unsuspecting girls...”

“Well, I’m glad you think this is funny. I’m glad this is good for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Beverly said, obviously not too sorry at all. Richie swallowed.

“Afterwards, we had a big fight. He came round and… I said some stuff. He said some stuff. I don’t know. It hurt my feelings. Even though I know that I messed up, he still hurt my feelings. Which is weird, ‘cause we’re always, like, saying stuff. I don’t know.” He wrapped his arms around himself, and Beverly scooted closer, her hands linking around his calves, her green eyes blinking up at him earnestly.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand the… relationship you have with Eddie. But maybe you two could just talk it out. Apologize. I’m sure that whatever you’re feeling, he’s going through the same thing.”

Richie blinked repeatedly. “Relationship?” he asked. “What do you mean, relationship?”

Beverly looked confused.

“What?” she said, her hands dropping to his ankles. “I mean… the way you two are— Did I say something wrong?”

“Just, why did you say ‘relationship’?”

“It’s just a word! Just another word for friendship.”

“Then you should have said friendship.”

“Richie,” Beverly said carefully, and Richie just knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming next, “you know none of us believe any of the rumors—“

Richie pulled his legs back up onto the bed, cutting her short, a lump forming in his throat. “Yeah, I– I’m done talking.”

Hurt coloured Beverly’s features, her mouth falling open as if she’d been physically wounded. “Richie…”

“I’m sorry,” Richie could hear his own voice as if it belonged to someone else, lifeless and inauthentic. “I’m kind of busy, now, so—“

“You’re busy,” Beverly repeated skeptically.

“I was just about to get changed and head out. I’m running late, now.”

“For what?”

“I’m going to meet up with my dad, actually.” He paused, guilt loosening the knot in his chest. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “I’m just not feeling good at the moment.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Beverly said, her jaw stiff. But she got to her feet without pressing further and moved towards the window. “Well, if you need anything…”

“And I’m sorry,” Richie said again. “About Bill. That it’s not working out.”

“That’s life,” shrugged Beverly. She looked so sad. Richie wished he knew how to comfort her, but something was in the way. “See you around, Tozier.”

“Yeah,” he said as she climbed out of the window. “See you around.”

After Beverly left, guilt, paranoia and the sudden need to be untraceable forced Richie out of his house for the first time in days, grease in his hair and sweat on his skin be damned. He didn’t head towards his dad’s office, though. He hadn’t hung out with his dad since he was six years old, and he wasn’t going to start it up again now, of all times.

He rode into town, feeling exposed every second he spent out in the daylight, pushing away the feeling that everyone was looking at him, talking about him. Judging what he was wearing, or how he looked. What he looked like. No one gave two shits about Richie Tozier – that was the truth, and it would do Richie well to remember it.

He brought his bike into the arcade, in part to conceal his whereabouts in case any of the Losers were to pass by. The Street Fighter machine was closer to the back, so no one would spot him unless they were looking for him, and Beverly had come looking for him and Richie had gave her no incentive to try again, so he decided he was safe. Besides, he knew pretty much everyone who stopped by at the arcade, and with Bowers and his crones out of the picture, he would have no qualms tracking down whoever might fuck with his bike. He was a senior come September, for fuck’s sake. He now feared no one.

He bumps into him as he was coming out of the bathroom. Messy blond hair was falling into his too-large eyes, and he and Richie were the same size, now. He wore a Nirvana shirt and ripped jeans, and he actually looked surprised to see Richie, even though Richie was the one who actually lived in this shithole of a town. This guy just showed up every summer, even if his cousin was in jail.

Both boys stood frozen, the bathroom door behind Richie still swinging behind him.

“Long time, no see,” Bowers’ cousin said after a moment. Richie didn’t answer. What was he supposed to say to that? Bowers’ cousin swallowed, then looked at his feet. “Need an opponent?”

Richie’s heart was hammering in his chest, and he wished it wouldn’t. “I’m not sure.”

Bower’s cousin nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Well.”

For the briefest of moments, he leaned forward, and Richie thought – he had no idea what he thought, actually – but he was just shifting his weight, preparing to enter the bathroom himself. Richie stepped out of the way, glancing over his shoulder at the back of the other boy’s neck, but only for a moment.

He marched his way back towards Street Fighter, his mind numb as he unthinkingly slotted another coin in. His palms were sweaty, and he played horrendously, every fibre of his being on edge. He was certain the other boy would come back. He was absolutely certain.

But he never did.

The next day, Richie woke up a whole new person, having decided that enough was enough. Just because he and Eddie had fought, it didn’t mean he couldn’t hang out with the rest of the Losers. They were his friends too, after all. And, from what he’d learned from Beverly, they were all none the wiser to his colossal fuck-up, which meant that they hadn’t had time to hear Eddie’s side of the story, or to take Eddie’s side against him at that. Which was all the more incentive for Richie to get his ass out of bed – if he got there first, maybe he could smooth things over. He could tell the story in a way that would make it sound like a typical Richie-and-Eddie story, one the rest of the gang didn’t have to understand or get involved in, one that would blow over soon enough without anyone else’s interference.

He called Stan’s first off, because Stan was his best friend and Stan wouldn’t ask any questions if Richie used the right tone of voice (hopefully). There was no answer, however, which Richie could take to mean that he was still asleep. He looked at the grandfather clock of the Tozier’s hallway, one his mom had found at some yard sale, and deduced that there was no way Stan Uris was sleeping in past 12pm.

After that, he dialled Bill’s number, and pretended he wasn’t relieved when Mr. Denbrough picked up instead.

Stan was out, as was Bill. There were a few places they could be, but Richie followed his hunch and set out towards the clubhouse.

He kicked open the hatch and whatever conversation was being had underground came to a halt.

“Richie!” Mike said as Richie climbed down. “Where you been, man?”

“Here and there,” Richie said, skipping the last two steps. “You losers miss me?”

“Moderately,” Stan allowed, but he was smiling. “It’s good to see you.”

Richie gave the clubhouse a quick once-over before sitting down beside Stanley. Everyone was here except for Eddie. An absence really became much louder when there was just the one.

Beverly was in the hammock today, reading a magazine and chewing on a lollipop stick. She smiled at Richie when he sought out her gaze, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Richie looked down, and listened to Stan and Ben talk about some old movie they’d both seen way too young. None of them had seen Jurassic Park, yet, and everyone wanted to. A day at the cinema was proposed, and Richie went along with it, not bringing up the fact that he had already seen it.

“So, I saw Eddie yesterday.”

Bill had managed to corner Richie by the cassette player as he changed stations. The sly bastard.

“Oh, really?” Richie asked, going for nonchalance as he kept turning the dial, coming up with static. The radio underground in the middle of the woods wasn’t great. 

“Yeah,” Bill said, putting his hand on the shelf above. “He was looking p-pretty rough. Have you guys talked at all?”

“No, we haven’t talked.”

“I think m-maybe you should.”

“Yeah?” Richie asked, stopping on a station playing ABBA. He stood up and brushed off his shorts. “Maybe you should talk to your girlfriend.”

Bill’s forehead creased. “Why would I…” he began, then shook his head. “Beverly and I aren’t fighting.”

Richie pulled a face, and Bill’s concern grew.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Richie replied quickly, realizing much too late that he’d said way too much all over again.  _ Shut up, shut up shut up shut up _ .

“No,” Bill insisted, “it’s something.”

“Uh, I actually have to go.” He would remove himself from this situation and it would be like this had never happened.

“Beverly,” Bill said loudly, and Bev lifted her gaze from her magazine. “What’s Richie talking about?”

For a split second, Beverly looked confused. But then her mouth dropped, and she looked at Richie in horror.

Fuck.

Everyone else in the clubhouse slowly became quiet as Beverly opened and closed her mouth, a deer caught in headlights. She looked from Bill to Richie, Bill to Richie, her eyes slowly welling with tears.

“Oh, god,” Richie muttered. Then, he grabbed his patterned shirt that lay on the floor beside a stunned Stan and climbed the ladder out of the clubhouse, hearing Bill ask, “You’re breaking up with me?” moments before the trap door fell shut behind him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ !” he cursed, banging himself on the forehead the whole way to the river. “Fuck!” he said again once he reached it, picking up a stone and throwing it into the water. It didn’t go far, or travel straight. It veered to the side, landing with an unhappy  _ thunk _ not halfway across the water. “God. Fuck. What the fuck,” he picked up another stone, “is wrong,” and another, “with me!”

He threw the three of them in quick succession, short angry bursts of energy.

“Hey there, Rich,” came a soft voice from behind him. He jumped and turned to see Stan, Mike and Ben standing meekly behind him in the shade of the trees.

“Watch out, boys,” Richie said bitterly, hating how thick his voice sounded, “I’m pretty dangerous to be around these days. I seem to take  _ disproportionate _ pleasure in fucking everyone over.”

“So, nothing new,” was Stan’s attempt at a joke. Richie didn’t think it was funny.

The other three boys slowly came to stand by Richie’s side, each one picking up stones of their own and joining in Richie’s aimless tossing. He let his own hands drop by his sides, staring off towards the other side of the river, at the reeds and dry weeds dead in the summer sun.

“You’re all growing up and I’m still the same shitty guy as ever.”

Stan, who stood beside him, squinted at him against the sunlight.

“We’re not growing up, Rich. I still can’t look at that painting in my dad’s office for more than five seconds at a time.”

“Yeah,” Mike added from Richie’s other side. “I still can’t kill the sheep at our farm without wanting to throw up.”

Ben said, “I listen to New Kidz on the Block.”

“We’re all still losers,” Stan shrugged in conclusion.

Ben nodded, and Mike smiled.

“Besides, it’s been going on for long enough anyway,” Mike said. “If you hadn’t said something, they might have gone on like that for another year.”

“God, I know,” Stan said, picking up a rock. “I might’ve had to say something.” He shuddered visibly at the thought, then threw the rock. It hit a stone that sat in the middle of the river, and a frog quickly jumped out from behind it. “Fuck, did I hurt it?”

Richie blinked quickly. “Wait, so you guys knew?”

“Well, duh,” Mike said easily. Stan shared a look with him, agreeing. Ben, for his part, didn’t look too sure at all, but he nodded all the same. “They’re like,  _ the _ most lukewarm couple I’ve ever seen. Especially this last couple of months.”

“When we were at Rosa’s!” Stan said, and Mike put his head in his hands.

“Oh, god, Rosa’s!”

“When were we at Rosa’s?” Richie asked, completely lost.

“You know, the weekend of Ben’s birthday? They sat next to each other and didn’t touch the entire time?” Stan asked.

“Leaving room for the holy spirit,” Mike grinned.

“I don’t know,” Richie said, bewildered.

“They were so polite, like some old mormon couple,” Stan said. “It was freaky.”

_ Old married couple _ , Beverly had said.

And now, all Richie could think was,  _ if they knew this about Bev and Bill, do they know about me? _ It was hot, standing in the sun, but now a different kind of heat washed over him, a current of fire rushing through his veins and making his head light.

“—Rich? Richie?” Mike was saying.

“What?” Richie said, a little harsher than intended. Mike frowned.

“I said,” he began, and Richie watched his mouth move but didn’t hear a thing he said. Fucking Mike and his perfect fucking bone structure and strong shoulders. Richie had dreamt about him, once.

“I don’t feel good,” Richie cut whatever Mike was saying short. Suddenly, he couldn’t look at him. At any of them. “I’m gonna head home. Let me know how the break-up goes.”

He turned on the spot and began back towards the woods, his breathing laboured. He felt sick. He was going to be sick. 

Stan jogged after him, and once they were far enough away from the other two, Richie stopped. The sooner Stan said what he had to, the sooner Richie could leave.

“It’s not your fault,” Stan said. Droplets of sweat peppered his forehead, and he winked awkwardly as a stray bead reached his left eye before wiping it away. “Them breaking up isn’t your fault.”

“Bev told me a secret, and I didn’t keep it. That’s not my fault?”

“Richie…” Stan said. He sounded like Richie’s mom whenever she was around long enough to be disappointed in him.

Richie shoved his hands deep into his pockets and said, “I’m going home.”

This time, Stan didn’t follow.

He kept his eyes on the ground as he headed home, kicking dry leaves every so often. He only looked up when he heard someone else approaching, then slowing down. It was Eddie.

Eddie, tight-lipped, wearing his ridiculous fanny pack and walking towards him. The sight of him made Richie’s throat ache. He met Richie’s eye, then purposefully looked right past him and walked off of the path (into the  _ mud _ ) to avoid him.

Richie swallowed the hurt down, because he knew he deserved it, and said, “I would skip the clubhouse if I were you. Bill and Bev are breaking up.”

Behind him, Eddie came to a halt. “They’re breaking up?”

Richie was glad someone else was as shocked as he was. “The others are down by the river, though. So…”

Eddie didn’t respond, but Richie didn’t hear him move away, either. He finally turned to look over his shoulder. Eddie was looking at him. The trees moved gently above them, speckling Eddie in white sunlight.

“Why’d you do it?” Eddie asked. His jaw was set, his expression hard. But maybe there was softness, too. Richie was probably imagining it.

When the question set in, at first Richie thought he meant his fuck-up in the clubhouse. Then he remembered Eddie hadn’t been there. He meant the other night.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Eddie set his jaw. Then turned and headed away.

Richie didn’t think about going after him until it was too late. Instead, he just stood rooted to the spot.

The thing was, he did know. But it never occurred to him to say it out loud.

Mr. Jackson wrote things on the blackboard. A bird perched itself on the windowsill. One row down, Donnie was using his pens as drumsticks. Strands of hair kept falling out of Betty’s bun. Richie could not focus.

He didn’t remember class being dismissed, but suddenly, the classroom was empty. He shook himself out of it and began putting his unused notepads back into his backpack, ignoring Mr. J slowly approaching.

“Hey, Tozier,” Mr. J said. Ignoring would now be more difficult. He was about to lean back against Donnie Lerman’s desk, but he second-guessed himself, and took the one closer to Richie instead. “How’s your summer going?”

Richie pulled his backpack onto his lap and puffed out his cheeks.

“Probably the worst summer of my life,” he said. This was probably not true; there was the summer they searched Derry’s sewer system for Bill’s brother’s corpse. That summer definitely had its highs and lows.

“I hope these classes aren’t that awful,” Mr. J joked, his arms folded across his stomach. Richie said nothing. That seemed to be cause for concern, because Mr. J’s brow furrowed, and his voice became quieter as he asked, “Is everything okay at home?”

Richie shrugged. “Sure.”

“With your friends?” When Richie didn’t answer, he said, “I know that being young can be difficult. Friends start to grow up and you realize that they’re maybe not… who you want them to be. I know it seems like friends are forever.” He paused. “Girlfriends—“

“My friends are fine,” Richie cut him off.

“Okay. Alright.”

Mr. J didn’t move, but Richie knew he had nothing else left to say. With that, Richie slid out of his chair and slung his backpack over one shoulder. Mr. J was looking at him with an open expression, his weird caterpillar eyebrows at an angle. Richie gave a small nod as a goodbye, but it came out pretty half-assed.

When he reached the open door, he stopped.

“What if it’s you?” he found himself saying. “What if you’re the friend people don’t want around anymore?”

He turned around to see Mr. J shift his weight, readjusting his folded arms. “Have any of your friends said this to you? You know, another thing about being a teenager… you think everyone hates you. All the time. It’s perfectly normal—“

“I’m not normal,” Richie said. Mr. J’s eyes widened, and Richie sniffled. “I mean, you said it yourself. I can’t study for shit. My brain is fucking wired wrong. And…” he stopped. “I’m a freak,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Everyone knows it.”

Mr. J was quiet. Embarrassment washed over Richie and he wished that he could leave, but if he moved a muscle he might burst into tears. So he was stuck there, his breathing shaky, his teacher staring at him with an inscrutable expression.

Then Mr. J moved, marching towards his desk and pulling his briefcase off of the floor. He pulled out a manila folder, flicked through it quickly, and walked over to Richie.

“I’ve been meaning to give you this,” he said, waving it between them until Richie hesitantly took it. “I have a friend who’s a psychologist, she sent me some information I think might be useful to you. If you have any questions, you can come to me. But I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself a freak again. Are we clear?”

Richie blinked at him, bewildered. All he could do was nod.

“Good,” Mr. J said. “Now, hurry along. Summer isn’t forever.”

Richie nodded again, and opened his mouth to say something.  _ Thank you?  _ But Mr. J’s eyes told him no further words were necessary, so he simply turned on his heel and head out into the hallway.

It was empty, except for the janitor off at the far end, jangling his keys and tapping on lockers. That guy must be bored. Richie waited until he reached the stairwell before stopping, the thin folder a weight in his hands.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting the inside to be like. Part of him, a slug in his stomach, thought it would be a flyer about sexuality, or an essay on how and who men were supposed to love. But it wasn’t.

_ Behavioural studies: impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention _

Richie skimmed the pages of what Mr. J had given him, seeing words like ‘disorder’ and ‘neurobiological’ and feeling lightheaded. 

Great. He was a headcase.

He took a deep breath, shoved the folder into his backpack and began jogging down the stairs to the bottom floor. He was almost out of the building when he heard someone sobbing.

It was a girl, and the sound was coming from the girl’s bathroom halfway to the exit. He walked past the door, which was wide open, and sure enough caught a glimpse Betty Ripson’s messenger bag on the floor outside of one of the stalls. He stopped in his tracks and looked around. No one was here to call him a nancy-boy. 

“Fuck it,” he muttered, and went in.

Betty’s sobs were watery and quiet, but the echo in the bathroom made them seem all the much louder. She couldn’t have heard Richie enter, but once he spoke, her sobs abruptly became quieter.

“Hey, uh, Betty? It’s me. Richie.”

“Go away.”

Richie let out a breath where he stood awkwardly in the middle of the bathroom. He’d paid a few visits to girls’ bathrooms before, courtesy of Bowers and his friends, so the lack of urinals didn’t throw him off as much as they used to. Then he saw it, in bold black letters scrawled on one of the bathroom mirrors.  _ Betty Ripson is a LESBO!  _

He took an instinctive step backwards, towards Betty’s stall. This scene felt all too familiar. In the basin beneath the mirror there was a pile of crumpled wet tissues, evidence of someone trying to wipe the words off.

“I, uh. I know how it feels,” he said against the closed door, his hair falling into his eyes. “You know. Everyone says the same thing about me.” He took another deep breath. “You know.”

There was a moment’s silence.

And then, “What if they’re right?”

“Oh,” Richie said, swallowing. He looked down at his beaten up converse, the rubber covered in dumb scribbles from over the school year. “Well, I mean, lesbians are pretty cool. They got the whole leather jacket market cornered... and...” 

He was cut off by the sound of Betty bursting into tears again. “My dad will kill me,” she cried.

“Oh.”

Richie leaned his back against the stall frame and looked at his reflection in the graffitied mirror, well aware that he was one of them. One of the clowns who had, no matter his intention, fed into stupid rumors that he knew, first-hand, could sting.

Then, the lock clicked and the stall door creaked open. Betty was sitting on the closed toilet seat, mascara bleeding down her cheeks which were red and puffy. Richie’s first instinct was to look away, because this didn’t look like something he should be allowed to see, but then he realized that Betty herself had opened the stall door inviting him to see it, so he sucked it up, dropped his backpack besides Betty’s bag and stepped into the stall himself, sitting down at her feet with his head beside the toilet roll dispenser. His legs were cramped in the small space, his feet invading the next stall across.

Betty blinked down at him, looking shocked.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Richie shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”

Betty seemed to relax a little at this, and wiped her eyes. Richie reached beside him to break off a bit of toilet paper and offered it to her. Once again, she blinked at him in surprise.

“Thanks,” she said. Richie nodded,  _ no problem _ . “You know, it was only one girl,” she said then, nervousness in her voice. “I like guys. I promise.”

“Was she hot?”

“I... uh, yeah. I think so?”

Richie nodded.

Betty straightened on the toilet seat, her Mary Janes knocking against Richie’s legs.

“You know Ana? The exchange student?”

“Ana?” Richie asked, mouth falling open. “Ana Banana? No fucking way! Jeez, Ripson. No offence, but she is way out of your league.”

Betty sniffled, the beginning of a smile tugging at her lips. “I thought so, too.”

“Are you gonna see her again?”

“Probably not,” Betty sighed. “She lives in Germany and all.”

“Bummer. There are bound to be... uh, girls like you in college, though, right?”

“Maybe... but I don’t know.” She wound her hands together. “I still like guys.”

“Do you like Eddie?” It came out quieter than he expected, and Betty drew in on herself again, her arms going to hug her waist.

“I did. I didn’t ask him out as, like, a joke, or whatever,” she said defensively. “But I don’t think it will work out.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie admitted. Betty looked confused, so he clarified, “For ruining the whole date night thing. Sometimes I just…” He waved his hands in front of him vaguely, “it’s like I’m watching myself fuck up, and I can’t stop.” He dropped his hands to his knees. “It’s weird.”

“You were a real asshole,” Betty agreed. “Janice cried all night.”

“Ah. Sorry. Again.” Janice had been a nightmare, but he still wasn’t proud of making her cry.

“Two  _ sorries _ in under a minute from Richie Tozier himself.” Betty smiled. “I wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to me.”

“Don’t go telling anyone I know the word. I can’t deal with those kind of expectations,” Richie said, linking his fingers and stretching his arms over his head.

“I won’t,” Betty said, getting to her feet. “And…” she held out her hand, and Richie took it, “thank you.”

“No problemo,” Richie said after being pulled to his feet. He then nodded towards the mirror. “That doesn’t come off, does it?”

Betty shrugged, then shook her head.  _ No _ .

Richie exited the stall and picked Betty’s messenger bag off of the floor and handed it to her. Then he put on his own backpack, kicked off his shoe, and before Betty could ask him what he was doing, he threw it as hard as he could into the mirror.

Betty’s gasp was lost in the shattering of glass, millions of shards falling across the bathroom sinks and tiles. It looked kind of beautiful.

“And now,” he said, taking Betty’s wrist, “we run.”

“It’s like mom and dad are divorcing. It’s terrible,” Stan was saying. It was the Fourth of July, and Stanley, Mike, Ben, Richie and Eddie were in the town square, waiting on Bill to show up. Ben had invited Beverly, but she’d declined, saying that she would be heading into the city with her aunt for the afternoon instead.

Richie hadn’t seen any of them since the great clubhouse debacle, and he hadn’t planned on coming, but Mike and Stan pulled him out of his house themselves. Eddie was sat as far away from Richie as possible, on the other side of the bench, and was doing a great job at pretending Richie wasn’t there at all. Which was just perfectly fine.

“You’re the one who was excited about their break-up,” Mike said, and Stan pulled a face.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“How long before things go back to normal?” Eddie asked.

“Well, Beverly hasn’t been in the group without dating Bill…” Stan posited, but Richie wasn’t following.

“That first summer they weren’t together,” Ben pointed out.

“Yeah, but we were  _ thirteen _ ,” said Stan, as if that meant something.

“What are you saying? Beverly’s out of the group now?” Mike asked. He was the only one of them not squinting like an asshole, wearing sunglasses and looking way too cool to be hanging out with the rest of them.

Ben looked as displeased with this notion as Richie felt.

“Beverly is our friend as much as Bill is,” he said. “We can’t just pick and choose!”

“But she’s not here today,” Stan pointed out.

“They broke up  _ three days ago _ !” Ben said.

“You know when you tell yourself, th-they’re probably not really talking about you, and you’re just p-paranoid?”

All the boys suddenly straightened as Bill joined them from behind, his long hair greasy and unwashed, his RayBans perched on his face the way an alcoholic who had a bad hangover might wear them.

“Sorry, Bill,” Stan said.

“Sorry,” Eddie echoed.

“How are you holding up, buddy?” Mike asked, scooting to the side to give Bill a spot on the bench. Eddie put a hand on Bill’s shoulder.

Bill didn’t really need to answer. He looked like shit. The Fourth of July festivities did not seem to be lifting his spirits at all.

“I’m really sorry, Bill,” Richie said.

Bill looked up at where he was sat, on the back of the bench behind Mike, and stared at him. He swallowed, then nodded.

“When did she tell you?”

“Just a few days ago, I swear.”

Bill nodded again.

It was a bleak day in the Losers’ history. They stayed around just long enough to watch the fireworks, and then scattered. Ben’s mom was around so he ended up going home with her, Eddie left with Bill, and Stan and Mike offered to walk Richie home, which he declined.

He took the long way home, walking past Beverly’s even though he didn’t actually have a plan of what to do if she were there. The driveway was empty, however, and the lights were off. Bill didn’t seem to be angry at him for what he did – he seemed too depressed to be anything at the moment. But Beverly… the look of horror on her face once she’d realized what Richie had let slip was one that made his stomach turn every time he thought of it.

Richie and Eddie were at an impasse. They had to be okay for Bill. The break-up definitely overshadowed whatever fight they were having. But they weren’t okay. They barely shared words with each other when the Losers (sans Beverly) were together, and even when they did speak it was just for banalities such as, “Can you pass me the water?” Or, “Excuse me.”

Ex-fucking- _ scuse _ me.

Richie had never been more miserable.

The worst part of it was that the only person he felt could maybe understand, or at least who had volunteered to listen to him out of her own free will, was currently M.I.A. (her aunt’s driveway was still empty, days later) and probably hated Richie’s guts anyway.

However, even with Eddie ignoring him and Beverly out of the picture, out of all the people Richie expected to walk through the doors of the Arcade, Stan was probably the last on his list. But there he was, halo of curly hair glowing in the light of all the screens in the room, looking incredibly uncomfortable amongst all the greasy pre-teens with whom Richie considered he had an unspoken bond. They flung boogers at him, he taught them new swear words. It was a relationship built on mutual understanding.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Richie asked loudly, quickly saving the coin he was about to slot into  _ Donkey Kong _ . “Is this a vision I see before me? Stanley Uris in the flesh?” Stan rolled his eyes and raised and lowered his palms in a calm-down gesture. “You hate it in here.”

“That’s why I came to get you out,” Stan grinned as he reached his side. Richie shifted his weight, contemplating.

“What’s in it for me?”

“Fresh air? Summer sun?” When Richie didn’t even blink, he sighed. “My mom made rugelach.”

Richie dropped the coin into his pocket, put his hand on the back of Stan’s neck and squeezed.

“You have my full and undivided attention, señor Stanley.”

Although Stanley was Richie’s best friend, and had been for the longest amount of time, he couldn’t think of a time this summer when it had just been the two of them. The walk to Stan’s house wasn’t a long one, seeing as he lived pretty near the Synagogue at the center of town what with his dad being Rabbi and all, but Richie found himself relishing in Stan’s company. Stan was, objectively, the funniest guy Richie knew. One of his neighbor’s little girls rode into him with her tricycle and he didn’t yell or anything. Instead, he just said, “Watch out, Miss Daisy,” which Richie thought might be a film reference, but if it was it wasn’t a good one.

“You are so weird, man,” Richie grinned.

“Okay,” was Stan’s response.

Richie flung an arm around his shoulder and they walked like that all the way into Stan’s kitchen, where Stan scooped a bunch of rugelach into a big bowl and lead Richie upstairs. 

Stan’s bedroom was so neat it was nauseating. It was neater than even Eddie’s room, because while Eddie did have an issue with organizing shit, he had too much shit, so no matter how well the shelves were organized they were always overstocked (with pill bottles and comic books), which just lead to them looking as cluttered as Richie’s own shelves back at home. Stan’s belongings were specifically curated for his bedroom. Anything else that didn’t fit, or belong, or that he’d grown out of, was placed somewhere else in the house: his mom’s study or the downstairs living room. Most of it, though, was in the basement, on designated shelves or in the correct cardboard boxes.

On the back of Stanley’s bedroom door there was a poster of different kinds of birds. God, all of Richie’s friends were nerds. He couldn’t believe Stan had gotten a handjob in this room.

Stanely laid the bowl of treats on his desk and sat on his bed. Richie took the desk chair happily and Stan began to talk about how Bill was taking the whole thing.

“Eddie and I went to his place this morning. His parents weren’t home and he was listening to Joy Division on the surround system downstairs. At 9AM. With all the blinds shut…” he shuddered. “Eddie and I managed to turn it off, and we got him out into the garden for some sunlight. I think Mike’s gonna hang with him this afternoon. They’re gonna watch a movie or something.”

“Cool,” Richie said. “Kudos to your mom, by the way. These are awesome.”

Stan nodded vacantly, and that was when Richie realized that this was a trap.

“So, what’s up with you two?”

Rugelach fell out of Richie’s mouth and onto his lap. Stan pretended not to notice, but didn’t do a very good job of it. His eye twitched when Richie picked up the crumbs and put them back in his mouth.

Well. He was here now.

Richie swallowed loudly and said, “I ruined his double date.”

Stan’s eyes widened. “You two went on a double date?”

“Yeah, and it tanked.”

“Duh.”

“That’s what Bev said.”

“That’s what any rational human would say,” Stan assured him. “Who’s idea was it?”

“Not mine, I can promise you that,” Richie said, shoving another rugelach into his mouth.

“So Eddie’s mad because you two went on a double date and it tanked? I think this one is on him.”

Richie shook his head and, with a full mouth, said, “It really isn’t.”

Stan looked at him oddly. “Why not?”

“Well, I did most of the tanking.”

“Of course. But I don’t think Eddie’s totally blameless.”

“Why?” Richie swallowed. “Because it’s common knowledge that I’m a useless piece of undateable garbage?”

“Whoa, whoa,” Stan said, eyes widening even further. “Dude. What is up with you lately?”

“Nothing! Nothing is up with me.”

“You know we’re your friends, right?” Stan asked, shifting closer, brow furrowed in deep concern. “We don’t care about how much you mess up, or whatever. Richie.”

“But it’s just a matter of time, right? Until you do?”

“Rich, where is this coming from?”

“I’m gay.”

He looked at Stan after he said it. Stan blinked.

“Like, super fucking gay, Stanley, you have no idea—” And that was as much eye contact he could bare, because he then dropped his head into his hands and tugged at his hair. “They’re right. They’re all right. Bowers, the graffiti all over school… my parents’ fucking  _ friends… _ ”

“Okay,” said Stan.

Richie peered up at him. “At least pretend to be surprised.”

“I’m surprised,” Stan assured him. “Just... adjusting.”

“Well, let me know when you’ve adjusted. In the meantime I’m gonna—“ he made a move to get up out of the chair, but Stan interrupted with, “Do you… like Eddie?”

Richie’s stomach dropped and suddenly he was going nowhere, his legs turned to jello.

“Oh my god,” Stan said, because it must be written all over Richie’s face. “This makes so much sense.”

“But you’re surprised. You didn’t guess,” Richie had to know. He corrected himself, “You  _ wouldn’t have _ guessed, if I hadn’t–”

“No, I wouldn’t have— fuck. I mean— Jesus, Richie. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I just did,” Richie said sourly.

“I mean  _ earlier _ .”

Richie knew what he meant. “This is the youngest we’ll ever be, Stanley! Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Richie sighed, deflating. “I think I’m gonna go home.”

“You can stay,” Stan offered weakly. “Talk about it.”

Richie shook his head. He had no idea of what else there was to say. Stanely did not follow him as he skipped down the stairs and out of the house. Not that he had been expecting him to.

At home, he shut himself in his room and retrieved the folder Mr. J had given him last week. 

_ Some people with  _ _ ADHD _ _ have fewer symptoms as they age, but some adults continue to have major symptoms that interfere with daily functioning. In adults, the main features of  _ _ ADHD _ _ may include difficulty paying attention, impulsiveness and restlessness. Symptoms can range from mild to severe. Almost everyone has some symptoms similar to ADHD at some point in their lives. If your difficulties are recent or occurred only occasionally in the past, you probably don't have ADHD. ADHD is diagnosed only when symptoms are severe enough to cause ongoing problems in more than one area of your life. These persistent and disruptive symptoms can be traced back to early childhood. _

Over the next few hours he read through the pages, which seemed to be excerpts from different medical journals and a few notes probably belonging to Mr. J’s psych friend. Getting distracted right before reading the word  _ distraction _ was probably a sign of something, and Richie knew deep down that almost all of these notes were about him. He should talk to his mom, maybe. Get an appointment with a doctor. Maybe in the city, though, because he didn’t have particularly fond memories of being at Derry’s small and stained doctor’s office. Maybe Mr. J had some suggestions. Or maybe he was overreacting, and there wasn’t much wrong with him at all. Other than, well. The obvious.

There was a knock on his bedroom door, and of course, his mind went to Eddie before anyone else.  _ That _ was a symptom of something alright.

The door creaked open just a bit, and Stanley’s curls became visible. It had gotten dark outside, and all the lights in the house were off. Richie was sitting in total darkness, and Stan was here. 

“Uh, Richie,” he said by way of greeting. Past his own surprise, Richie closed Mr. J’s folder and pushed it under his pillow. Then he turned on his bedside lamp, which Stan took as an invitation to enter. He cast a glance at the pillow suspiciously, but instead of asking about it he held up a plastic back and said, “I, uh, brought you some magazines?”

Richie raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of magazines?”

Stan stood rooted awkwardly to the spot. Then, he pursed his lips and stepped forward, pouring the contents of the bag onto Richie’s bed.

Richie yelped in surprise, for from the pages of full-colour magazines were a whole lot of oiled-up men wearing a whole lot of nothing.

“Jesus Christ, Stanley!” he spluttered, eyes caught on a twenty-something wearing a cowboy hat and a waistcoat. “What the fuck?”

“I just wanted you to know that I,” he took a deep breath, “I support you. I have a deep respect for the gay community.”

“You fucking nerd. Did you just  _ have _ these?”

“No, I found them,” Stan answered cryptically.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you want them, or not?”

After a brief moment’s hesitation, Richie grabbed the one closest to him and began flicking through it. Stan clambered up onto the bed beside him and peered over his shoulder.

“Oh, dude, they’re actually fucking in here, what the fuck?” He turned his head to look at Stan, who’s eyes were now clenched tightly shut. “OK, this page is safe,” Richie said, turning to the next one. “You have got to tell me where you ‘found’ these.”

“Maybe later,” Stan said. “Or never.”

And that was how Richie and Stan ended up flipping through gay magazines together on a muggy summer night.

“There’s no way that’s real,” Stan said matter-of-factly at a photograph of a pretty well-endowed tanned man on a beach.

“What do you mean?” Richie asked. “What part?”

“I mean…” Stan said, frowning. “It’s gotta be fake. Right? They’re like… drawn on. The abs. All of it. It’s all drawn on.” He started laughing, and then Richie started laughing too. And then they were both giggling like they did when they were younger, clutching at their sides and collapsing onto the bed, or, in Richie’s case, onto the floor.

A little while later, they ordered Chinese food and watched cartoons in the living room, fighting over spring rolls with chopsticks as Richie’s mom came home from work, ruffling both of their hair fondly as she headed through to the kitchen.

“It’s good to see you, Stanley,” said Richie’s dad when he arrived a while later. “It’s been a while!”

“You, too, Mr Tozier,” Stanley said, and once again Richie felt like he was ten years old, weightless and  _ happy _ .

_ Predator _ was ending when Richie’s parents head upstairs to bed, Richie’s mother frowning when Arnie and Richie said in unison, “You’re one ugly motherfucker!”

The light in the upstairs hall switched off, and although Arnie was fighting an alien monster to the death onscreen, everything grew quieter, somehow. Stan shifted closer to him on the couch, and Richie’s spirit fell at the sudden change in tone of the evening. His friend looked over his shoulder, at the darkened staircase behind them, and asked, “Are you gonna tell anyone else?”

Not,  _ Have you told your parents?  _ Because he already seemed to know, in that Stan way of his, that Richie hadn’t.

“No offense, but I wouldn’t have even told you.”

Stan considered this. “I think you should.”

“I think you should mind your own business.”

“My own business?” Stan asked, amused. On the TV, Arnie took a bad hit.

“Yeah… Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

“You mean, not blurt it out in front of all the Losers?”

“Not funny, Stan.”

“Sorry,” Stan said, looking down. “A little bit funny, though.”

Richie shoved a cushion at him. “Asshole.”

And that was all that was said for the rest of the film.

Stan hadn’t brought anything other than his mysterious plastic bag full of porn, so all he had to do before leaving was put his shoes back on. He went into the kitchen and returned with a trash bag, which he then scooped the remains of their takeaway dinner into. Richie walked him out onto the front porch, and he meant to say something. Something meaningful, to express how grateful he was for everything. But Stan cut him short, dropping the (diligently closed) trash bag onto the wooden floor and pulling Richie into a hug. They were almost the same size, Richie only a few inches taller, and Stan’s arms wrapped around Richie’s shoulders easily. It took a moment for Richie to realize why he was so shocked at the contact – he hadn’t thought Stan would want to get close to him again after he knew. But here Stan was, burying his face in Richie’s shoulder, as close as he had ever been.

Richie’s eyes were wet by the time Stan pulled away, but Stan didn’t comment on it. He just smiled, and, god, Stan was so old and so wise for his age. Always had been.

Stan was by the trash cans at the end of Richie’s front garden when he stopped and turned back. “Oh, Beverly’s home. By the way. Bill went over and had a talk with her after we saw him.”

“Beverly’s home? Since when?”

Stan shrugged and picked up the trash can lid. “Since yesterday, I think.” He dropped their takeaway into the trash and closed it. “She and her aunt went on a roadtrip or something.”

“Oh, cool,” Richie said, his mind racing. “Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem,” Stan said, giving Richie one last easy grin before heading off into the night.

Richie could kiss him.

He wasn’t going to push it, though. Not yet, anyway.

Richie got very little sleep that night, but he went to summer school anyway, like a champ. Mr. J wasn’t teaching, so he left his folder and questions at home under his pillow, vibrating throughout the entirety of the morning. The second Mrs. Clarke dismissed the class, he waved a quick wave goodbye to Betty and was out of there, a man on a mission. He took his bike up to the forest path, where he dropped it and walked the rest of the way to the clubhouse.

Upon first glance, it was empty. Richie jumped down half of the ladder and headed straight towards the cassette player. He opened it, saw that it was empty, and started rummaging around the shelves when he realized he wasn’t alone.

Eddie sat in the hammock with a book rested on his lap. He was staring at Richie with a strange look on his face.

“Oh, hey, Eds,” Richie said. “Ah.” He found the tape he was looking for and jumped to his feet, said, “See ya,” and then he climbed back out up the ladder, cassette player under his arm before Eddie had time to say anything at all.

Beverly’s elderly next-door neighbor was watering his plants next door when Richie crashed his bicycle into the sidewalk. Riding the bike one-handed had been easy enough, but stopping turned out to be too difficult a task. He staggered to a halt and hopped off of his bike, which fell to the ground with an unfriendly yet familiar  _ clank _ .

“Good afternoon Mr. Thompson,” Richie greeted with a small salute. Mr. Thompson looked at him apprehensively.

Beverly’s place was a bungalow, all on one floor. Lucky for Richie, Beverly’s window looked out over the front of the house.

Richie pressed start, and fast-forwarded to the track he was looking for. Once he made it to  _ In Your Eyes _ by Peter Gabriel, he raised the cassette player over his head and waited.

For about ten seconds. Then he brought it back down to fiddle with the volume dial.

“Doesn’t this thing go any louder?” he muttered. It did not go any louder. “Shit. Piece of junk.”

“What are you doing, son?” Mr. Thompson asked, his flowerbed more than sufficiently watered.

“Not a big John Hughes fan, I see,” Richie nodded. His arms already ached, and he’d worked up quite a sweat in his rush to get over here. Not that he was winded – no, he was in  _ way _ better shape than that. Of course he was.

“Are you courting the little lady?” Mr. Thompson pressed. 

“Not really.”

Mr. Thompson considered. “I don’t think that’ll work. It’s pretty annoying.”

“Okay, Mr. Thompson. Thank you.”

Peter Gabriel sang the titular line just as Beverly’s window opened. Her hair was cut short, almost as short as she’d cut it that first summer, and it was also all over the place. She was bleary-eyed and wearing a vest top and she looked very confused at the scene out on her front lawn.

Mr. Thompson nodded at Richie knowingly and made himself scarce, busying himself with turning off the water and pulling the hose in as Peter Gabriel wailed on above-head.

“You hate that movie,” Beverly said at last, pushing her new bangs out of her face.

Richie licked his lips. “But you don’t.” Beverly’s face was pretty unreadable, which wasn’t good – but it wasn’t totally bad, either. Maybe. He set the player on the ground at his feet and realized that he hadn’t quite planned on what to say. Mr. Thompson gave him a thumbs up before closing the front door behind him. “Beverly. I am– so, so sorry. I really fucked up. And you’re like, my best friend. Don’t tell Stan.”

Beverly chuckled, leaned her forearms on her windowsill and shrugged.

“It had to happen anyway,” she said. Richie took a step forward and kicked the cassette player. After cursing, he skipped over it and approached Beverly’s window.

“Yeah, but it had to happen…” he lowered his voice, was unsure of where to put his hands. “It had to happen your way. It had to happen your way, and I fucked it up. Don’t say it’s okay. Because it’s not.”

There was a pause, and Beverly nodded. 

Richie let out a breath and put his hands on the window frame to stabilize himself. Beverly didn’t flinch away, which was a good sign. She even smiled at him a little, which was an even better one.

“I really like your hair,” Richie said.

“Do you? My aunt’s friend did it. She’s a stylist.” Beverly turned her head from side to side, her chin raised high. “Said I had good cheekbones.”

“You were not lied to, Bev. I’m sorry I’m such a shitty friend.”

Beverly’s smile turned sadder – it was all in the eyes. They started to shine, just a little bit, and her jaw tensed ever-so-slowly. “Could you tell me why you did it?” she asked. “I don’t believe it was to upset me.”

Richie nodded, slowly.

“I, uh… I was going to tell you, actually. It’s not– it’s not an excuse, I know. But I’ve been trying to– trying to work things out. You know? With me.”

“Okay,” Beverly said.

Richie’s gaze flickered to Mr. Thompson’s doorstep.

“Can I come in first?”

Beverly seemed to consider it.

“I’ll meet you by the front door.”

A minute later, the two of them were sat on two different sofas in the living room. Beverly’s knees were up against her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Richie had thought Bill had looked bad, but honestly, Beverly only looked slightly better. It was weird seeing the two best-looking people he knew reduced to such a state.

“Okay,” Richie said, when Beverly said nothing. “I think it started when… when Betty asked Eddie out.”

Beverly nodded, clearly not quite understanding.

“Things kinda… spiralled out of control. I don’t know. I kept being an asshole, like I couldn’t help it. More than usual, I mean. Worse. And it was because I was upset. Um… about Betty asking Eddie out.”

A crease appeared between Beverly’s eyebrows, but still she said nothing.

“I wrecked their date on purpose. Our date. The other girl that was there, Janice… she was stressing me out. She was totally coming onto me, and Betty and Eddie were holding hands and shit. It made me… it made me so angry, but not angry at them. I was such an asshole to her, Beverly, you should have seen it. Actually, I’m glad you didn’t. You’d be even more pissed at me than you are right now. The thing is, I was angry at me. Because it’s been years now, and I don’t grow out of it. It doesn’t stop. And this summer… I’m learning it won’t stop. Thanks to Betty Ripson… god. And it’s fucking terrifying.”

If Beverly looked confused before, she now looked utterly lost. She had dropped her knees and her hands now lay on her thighs, her palms turned upwards.

“I have a crush on Eddie.”

Beverly let out a bizarre noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a, “ _ What _ ?” 

Then her mouth fell open, and she promptly covered it with her hands. The seconds ticked by as Richie waited for her to say something.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment. “Oh! You… you’re... not straight?”

Richie shook his head. “Stan bought me some magazines. Actually, I don’t know where he got them from.”

“Stan gave you gay porn?” she squeaked. Her hands were still over her mouth.

“Yeah,” Richie laughed. “Wanna see it?”

Beverly shook her head, her eyes wide, and finally dropped her hands. “I don’t think I do, actually. Richie… You’re  _ gay _ .”

Richie opened his arms and did (admittedly pathetic) jazz hands. Suddenly, Beverly was beside him on the sofa, her hands clutching his arm, her nails coloured in chipped pink nail polish digging into his skin.

“Stan knows?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Richie nodded. “I kind of came out to Stan on accident.”

“Oh, Rich…”

“It  _ was _ embarrassing,” Richie allowed.

“Thank you,” Beverly said, reaching over to take both of his hands in hers. “For telling me. For choosing to.” She shook his hands and squeezed them tight. “You know I love you, right?”

Richie’s voice cracked when he asked, “You do?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she laughed, and tucked a strand of Richie’s dark hair behind his ear. “Oh, Rich.”

Richie blinked away the heat in his eyes and met her gaze. All her edges had softened now, her green eyes bright with something other than pain. Maybe she did mean it, when she said she loved him.

“No wonder you were so upset about your fight with Eddie.”

“Don’t remind me,” Richie sighed, falling back against the sofa, one of Beverly’s hands still in his.

“So you haven’t fixed it?”

Richie turned his head to look at her. “Without my best friend and confidant by my side? I’m nothing without you, Bev.”

“That’s not true,” Beverly admonished, pushing his chest playfully, but he could tell she was pleased.

“He’s gonna hate me forever,” he groaned.

“Now that is  _ definitely _ not true,” said Beverly, settling in beside him. Richie considered for a moment, and realized that the dark fog that had been clouding his head since summer started was clearing up, if only just a little.

“It’s not, is it?”

“No,” Beverly smiled. “But you’ve got to stop acting the way you have.”

“You mean like a dick.”

“Yup. Please stop acting like a dick.”

Richie sighed. “I’ll do my darndest.”

“And Stan knows, too?” She knocked their shoulders together. “ Maybe we can team up. Help you out.”

“Over my dead – and let me stress this very clearly, Marsh – fucking  _ body _ .”

Beverly tutted. “There’s that attitude.”

“Oh, fuck off. And seriously. No meddling. I don’t want to get you guys stuck in this mess, too. The groups in shambles as it is.” He paused to look at her. “D’you think you’ll come back? You know. With all of us?”

“Sure I will. You guys are my family.”

“Bevvie, I swear to god, you are trying to make me cry today, and I’ve had enough of a week already as it is.”

Instead of replying to that, Beverly simply shifted and laid her head on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined between them.

And for the first time in a long time, Richie thought that things might actually turn out okay.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who left kudos or commented on the first chapter! they really were great extra little pushes to get this writing done.  
i am very excited for the next chapter, in which i plan to make readers' stomachs swoop. i love a slowburn, and after 20k words, i think we all deserve a payoff, don't you?  
thank you sooo much for reading, i hope people other than myself keep enjoying it!  
amy x


	3. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello there! once again, this chapter took and is longer than i expected!  
if this chapter is more intelligible than the previous one, it is thanks to the invaluable efforts of @thesehands , who kindly beta’d for me! i owe them my life.  
enjoy!!

Stan, Ben and Eddie were on Bill duty this afternoon. Ben had managed to smuggle some beer out of the fridge in his basement, and Stan had a tupperware of home baked goods. Eddie brought nothing other than his company, which, until about an hour ago, had promised to be nothing but pleasant and enjoyable, as always.

But now, after a brief encounter in the clubhouse, Eddie’s sunny disposition was clouded by an absolute hatred of the lanky, bespectacled, greasy-haired disaster of a boy known to most as Richie Tozier.

“He’s been a huge fucking asshole to me all summer, and now, what?” he said, waving his beer bottle around in front of him. They were in Bill’s backyard, each of them sitting on lawn chairs and passing around their loot in the shade of the old oak tree that had been there for as long as Eddie could remember. Eddie had opened his beverage, but had yet to drink any of it, which meant his gesticulating caused a few stray drops to spill onto Stan’s shorts. “Sorry. But he just says, ‘hi’? ‘Hi, Eddie.’ Like we’re okay? How fucking dare he? It’s just unbelievable to me.”

From Bill’s other side, Ben gave him a wide-eyed, insistent look that probably meant, _ We’re supposed to be comforting Bill _. Eddie ignored him.

“Like, I finally find a girl who’s willing to go out with me – who _ asked _ to go out with me – and he’s just a complete fucking fuckwad about it. And the weirdest part is: why can’t he just _ apologize _ ? It’s been weeks already. I’m not even mad about it anymore. At this point, I’m more mad about how he doesn’t have the balls to own up to the fact that he was _ totally _ out of line.” This wasn’t true, per se, but none of the other boys dared challenge him. Bill was nodding along, hung on his every word.

“Maybe he’s embarrassed,” Stan suggested lightly. Eddie turned on him, gripping onto the armrest of his chair. 

“What do you mean, he’s embarrassed? Richie’s never been embarrassed by anything in his life. And, god, you know the weirdest fucking part… The other day, in town, I saw him. And Betty. Walking. _ Together _. Like they were friends! He stole my goddamn girlfriend from me!”

“Betty was your girlfriend?” Bill asked, eyebrows shooting up. “It was that serious?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie waved his hand. “Maybe.” He turned to his right, the beer sloshing onto Stan’s sandals this time. “Stan, he has to have said something to you about it.”

“Oh, geez, dude, put that thing down!” Stan said, wrestling the bottle away from him and putting it on the fold-out table they’d set up between them.

“Well?” Eddie insisted. “Has he? Said something to you?”

“What would he say to me?” Stan replied, blinking very quickly all of a sudden. “I mean, why?”

“You’re best friends,” Eddie reminded him.

“Oh, yeah,” Stan said, as if suddenly remembering. “No, he’s not… nope. He hasn’t said anything to me.”

“God, Stan. You’re such a fucking liar. What’s it like being so far up Richie’s asshole all the time?”

Stan’s clueless facade dropped, his mouth falling open. “_ I’m _ up Richie’s–”

“Whatever,” Eddie cut him off. “Like I said, I don’t care. I’m over it.”

“Really,” Stan said, folding his arms across his chest. Eddie had no idea how Stan could make polo shirts look so much better than he did. Stan’s chest was broader, that was true. His arms were slightly bigger, too. It wasn’t that the shirt was too tight, it just fit him properly. Even if Eddie could get his mom to stop buying him clothes two sizes too small, he doubted he could look like Stan.

“Bill’s over his break-up, right?” he said, flinging his hand at his best friend since childhood. “And Richie and I fought before he and Bev– before they broke up. How weird would it be if Bill was over _ his _ thing, but I wasn’t over…? You know.”

Stan levelled him with a look. “Maybe you should go talk to him.”

“Maybe I should…” Eddie repeated, “Stan, whose fucking team are you on, man?”

“I’m not on anyone’s team!” Stan shouted, and Ben jumped. “Holy shit! You’re so annoying! And you’re driving the rest of us crazy! You _ both _ are.”

“That’s not–” Eddie began, then stopped when he caught Ben’s eye. “Okay. Okay. Fuck you, too, then.”

“You really should just talk to him,” Ben piped up. “Telling us about it won’t solve anything.”

“Fine, it’s fine!” Eddie said, fidgeting in his seat. “I’ll shut the fuck up then, I guess!” He slouched in the deck chair, his legs wide apart, his arms folded.

“_ Thank you _,” Stan whispered, his eyes closed.

“_ Fuck you _,” Eddie whispered in a mimicing tone. Stanley seemed unbothered by the offense.

“Guys,” Bill spoke up suddenly. Both Eddie and Stan turned to look at him. “I want to shave my head.”

Eddie didn’t get too involved in the whole head-shaving thing. He didn’t want to be finding strands of Bill’s grunge-hair phase in his clothes years from now, thank you very much, so he stayed in the bathroom doorway and watched Ben snip the better part of Bill’s locks away before Stan passed him the clippers. Ben’s tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he worked, the handheld machine humming as he ran it over Bill’s scalp until Bill was sporting a neat buzzcut.

“How does it feel?” Ben asked, sitting back looking worried.

“Lighter,” Bill replied, pushing himself up from his seat at the edge of the bathtub to look at himself in the mirror.

“Dude, you’re totally bald,” Eddie laughed. Bill cast him a glance before turning back to the mirror. “You can see the whole shape of your skull! Gross!”

“It doesn’t look bad, right?” Bill asked, tilting his head this way and that, inspecting Ben’s handiwork nervously. “Tell me it doesn’t look b-bad.”

“It looks pretty fucking cool, actually,” Stan said, leaning over to rub his hand over Bill’s head playfully.

“I’d do you,” Eddie added.

All three boys fell silent. Eddie frowned back at them.

“It was a joke. Jeez.”

While Ben and Bill shrugged and began sweeping up what was left, Stan’s gaze lingered on Eddie much too long for comfort. 

What a weirdo.

So, on the way home Eddie walked past Richie’s house. Was it on the way? Not necessarily. But while he was there, he decided to climb the steps of the front porch and, after a deep breath, ring the doorbell.

Through the foggy glass door, he could make out that the shape who was about to greet him was one of Richie’s parents. At a speed he himself found quite impressive, he put on his best smile in time for Richie’s dad.

“Hi, there, Mr. Tozier. Is Richie in?”

Richie’s dad really was balding. Poor Richie. “Good evening, Eddie,” the balding man said. “No, I don’t think he is. He might be at Stanley’s.”

Eddie knew that wasn't true, and Mike was out of town for the day running errands for the farm. Beverly, according to Bill, was back, so that’s probably where Richie was. He spent a lot of time at Beverly’s.

Eddie bid Richie’s father goodbye and wondered if Beverly would forgive Richie his betrayal at the clubhouse last week. Eddie hadn’t posited this aloud, but he did have a theory that they had plotted the whole debacle together. This theory was then replaced by the question of why Richie would jumpstart the breakup like that. Like, what would he have to gain from Bill and Beverly splitting up? It was a fucking disastrous affair, on the whole, what with Bill listening to fucking Joy Division and being too moody to make the hike out to the clubhouse – or anywhere, really.

But now Richie was at Beverly’s house.

He could be at the arcade, or at the clubhouse again, but Eddie just _ knew _ he was at Beverly’s house. He was apologizing to Beverly, saying who-knows-what, and all Eddie had gotten for his troubles was the fucking silent treatment. That just seemed fine. Fantastic even. Great! 

_ Wonderful _.

Eddie kicked a stone as he walked. It bounced against the opposite sidewalk. He knew that everyone in the group, at one point or another, had liked Beverly. Heck, she was the first (and only) girl to ever willingly interact with any of them, so who could blame them?

She had history with Bill, though. A play in the third grade, couldn’t fake that kind of passion, ya-da, ya-da. And Bill was objectively the better-looking out of all of them, so it made sense.

Richie sure stayed over at Beverly’s a lot. Bill had never seemed worried about it, and Eddie hadn’t given it much thought, either. But after seeing Richie chumming around with _ Betty _, of all people, Eddie had to wonder… 

“Eddie?”

Eddie froze in his tracks. He had been looking at the floor, scouting out stray pebbles, when sure enough, there he was, wearing jogging shorts and a green T-shirt with a Sonic the Hedgehog knock-off on the front. It was getting dark and Richie was a few feet away, so Eddie couldn’t read it too well, but it seemed to read simply ‘Sonc’. God, he hated Richie’s stupid clothes.

“Richie?” he said, his hand shooting up to scratch behind his own ear. “Weird. Seeing you here.”

“This is my street,” Richie said.

“Oh,” Eddie said, looking around. “So it is.”

He was no fucking better than Stanley.

Richie frowned.

“You okay?” he had the _ gall _ to ask then.

“Yes, I’m okay,” Eddie snapped in response. His hands curled into fists, he marched right past him, ignoring the way Richie’s eyes were boring into him.

As soon as he was around the corner and well out of view, he felt an odd smile tug at his lips.

Richie wasn’t at Beverly’s anymore.

**iii**

It was Friday, and Bill’s parents were going out of town on a romantic getaway. Bill didn’t _ say _ that his parents were going to go bone in an expensive hotel room, but it was obvious to Richie that’s what they planned to do.

“Are you sure you can’t come?” he asked Beverly, his head in her lap as she braided his hair. This activity had been going on long before he had told her he was gay, so it wasn’t stereotypical as far as he was concerned. “Bald Bill’s been looking better lately, and you said you’ve talked…”

“I’ll come to the quarry tomorrow, I just don’t feel like spending the night at my ex-boyfriend’s house.”

Richie sighed heavily. “That’s fair, and you’re right.”

“Of course it is and of course I am,” Beverly said, picking a small rubber band out of the bag at her side and tying it around the end of a braid. This one was bright orange. “You want another one?”

She held up handheld mirror over him. He had two on either side of his head and one at the back, which she lifted so he could see.

“I think I’m all set,” Richie said, and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the sofa. “Thank you, Miss Marsh. I’m sure to turn many a head at the county ball tonight.”

Beverly smiled, placing the mirror back on the coffee table, and Richie heaved himself to his feet and began the search for his shoes.

“Speaking of turning heads…” Beverly began.

“It was a joke,” Richie said. His shoes were in the kitchen area, by aunt Lucy’s pot brownies. Made sense. “No heads are being turned.”

“Have you talked to him?” Beverly asked, flopping back down upon the sofa, her feet on the arm rest.

“Not really. Everytime I try, it seems to piss him off. Apparently I just can’t say the right thing. Even ‘hello’ seems to make him mad. And to make things clear: I’m not looking to turn Eddie’s head. I just want to be friends again. That’s it.”

“I know, I know,” Beverly said, raising her hands in surrender. “That’s what I meant.”

Richie finished tying his shoe and levelled her with a look.

“No it’s not, but I forgive you.” 

Beverly grinned.

“Okay. I’m leaving.” He bounced over to his friend and planted a loud kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll miss you!”

“Go on, get out of here,” Beverly shooed him, and Richie did just that.

The past few days, everything seemed to be going well: Bill seemed less depressed (albeit a lot balder), Richie had fixed things with Beverly, and now that she and Stan both _ knew… _ it felt like air had been let out of the ugly red balloon caught in his chest.

“Cool hair,” Stan greeted upon answering the doorbell. Music was playing and Richie knew in an instant that it was not Joy Division.

“Thanks,” Richie said, shimmying past him and showing off his tiny braids. “Bev’s handiwork.”

“Of course.”

Through his quick assessment of the house, he found Bill and Mike coming downstairs and then Eddie glaring at him from the living room sofa. Jeez. Bev really shouldn’t hold her breath.

Stan told him that Bill’s dad had bought them all beer for the night, and sure enough, there it was, on the kitchen table. Legally obtained booze. They weren’t allowed to tell Bill’s mom about the little arrangement, and they had to get rid of all evidence that there had been anything akin to underage drinking going on in the house before the parents got back.

Mr. Denbrough was _ so _ getting laid.

Good for him, Richie thought. He knows his own parents had believed they’d split up after Georgie… and they had, for a while. But look at them now: leaving the house to their son and his weirdo friends so that they could fuck in peace. Good for them. Good for them.

The group stayed in the living room, spreading out on the sofas and armchairs while MTV played Meatloaf and Duran Duran. Richie was curled up on the armchair at the far end of the room, while Eddie sat to Bill’s right, his arm around his best friend. 

Richie refused to feel jealous of Bill.

“How are things with Ripsom going?” Mike asked. Richie pretended he wasn’t listening, but Stan met his eyes and pulled a face that looked a lot like, _ you okay bud? _as Eddie answered.

“Oh, uh… I don’t know. Going.”

Richie flared his nostrils at Stan in a way he hoped said, _ cut it out! _

“When was the last time you talked to her?” Mike asked.

Bill frowned at Richie, who immediately dropped his attempt at a telepathic conversation with his friend.

“A few weeks ago,” Eddie replied squeamishly. Mike’s eyes widened.

“Weeks?”

“I’ve been busy!”

“You’ve been busy,” Mike repeated. In a moment of clear desperation, Eddie looked for Richie, as if for help. As soon as his eyes found him, however, he quickly looked away. 

So, Richie had fucked that up. He wasn’t even happy about it, about the fact that Eddie was no longer with someone else (a fact that a month ago would have helped him sleep a lot easier). Instead, he just felt like the world's biggest asshole.

He heaved himself out of the armchair and patted his back and front pockets.

“I’m gonna go…” he said, waving his Malboros by way of explanation. Bill nodded, and Mike kept pressing into Eddie.

“You literally don’t do anything,” he was saying as Richie entered the hallway.

“I-I do things!” was Eddie’s retaliation, and it came out of nowhere: Richie’s fondness for Eddie flooded his chest, coloring it bright red so quickly he felt dizzy.

He didn’t hear the bathroom door open as he approached it, and he bumped into Ben, who was coming out.

“Shit, sorry,” Richie said, stepping back to pick up his cigarettes, which had scattered across the hallway rug.

“No worries,” Ben said, crouching down to help him out. After he handed Richie the final cigarette, which Richie slotted back into the packet, neither of them stood up quite yet. Richie fixed the other boy with a look.

“How’d you do it, Benji?” he asked him. “You got through two whole years of it.”

“She doesn’t like me like that,” Ben said without pretense.

“And that doesn’t bum you out?” Richie pressed.

Ben finally stood up and shrugged again. Richie followed suit and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. Looking deep into his friend’s eyes, he said, in all earnesty, “You are the strongest of us all.”

Ben gave him one of those odd little smiles of his. It was like there were two Ben’s, and the truer, deeper one was fighting to get through. Richie loved both Ben’s equally, of course, but it was always exciting when the true Ben shone through (which, through the years, became more and more often). 

_ We’re not so different, you and I _, Richie almost said, but they were. Their differences lay in that Ben was graceful and wise and dignified, whereas Richie was a goddamn tornado.

“You won’t…” Ben said after a moment, “say anything, will you?” 

Richie let go of his shoulder threw his hands up.

“For god’s sake, it was one time! One time! I’m great at keeping secrets. Really,” he insisted at Ben’s arched eyebrow. “Besides, everyone knows,” he added. “Except Beverly. And maybe Bill.”

“Great,” Ben nodded. “Thanks, Richie.”

“No problem,” Richie grinned, and pat him on the back as he went back towards the living room.

Richie himself continued into the kitchen, where he slid open the glass doors and stepped into the back garden. It was a warm night, warmer than most, and he recalled hearing that a heatwave was coming. As if he didn’t sweat enough.

He lit a cigarette and looked up after inhaling. A few stars were visible above past the roof of Bill’s house, and he blew the smoke up into them.

Maybe they could sleep out here tonight.

He heard the door slide open behind him.

“Stan, you have got to be more subtle, man—“ he began, but the words died in his throat when he saw that it wasn’t Stan at all.

“Subtle about what?” Eddie asked.

Richie swallowed. “Oh, nothing. Stupid stuff.”

“Yeah,” Eddie scoffed, and walked until he was standing in front of him, the Denbrough’s old oak tree towering behind him. He had gotten sunburnt sometime this week, and even in the dark of the garden, the odd pink tinge to the bridge of his nose and forehead was visible. Eddie didn’t get tan, he got sunburnt, then freckled. Richie knew this because he was just observant. “What were you talking about?” he asked, then. Richie opened and closed his mouth, then said, “What?”

“With Ben?” Eddie clarified under the guise of patience.

“Oh,” Richie said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nothing much.”

“Beverly?”

Richie squinted.

“She’s a mutual friend,” he allowed.

“Do you… do you have a crush on Beverly?” He said it so fast it took Richie a moment to decipher it. When he did, he blinked.

“What?”

Eddie’s jaw was set, like he was readying himself for a fight. “You heard me.”

“Yeah, but I think I might have imagined it.” Richie inspected his cigarette in the dim light that was spilling out of the kitchen behind him.

“Do you have a crush on Beverly?” Eddie repeated and fuck, he was serious.

“No!” Richie said, as clearly as he possibly could. “What the fuck?”

“She broke up with Bill.”

Richie shrugged, still deeply confused. “Bill’s boring.”

“You go to her place all the time.”

“Her place is awesome. Her aunt makes pot brownies!”

“You had this whole stupid dance thing–”

“‘Cause we’re _ awesome _.”

“She braided your hair—“

Richie pouted. “You don’t like it?”

Eddie flared his nostrils. “You asked Ben how he did it!”

Richie’s stomach flipped.

“You were eavesdropping?” he asked as he mentally replayed his conversation with Ben in case he’d said something he shouldn’t have. “_ You _ let it slip that she wanted to break up with him,” Eddie continued, ignoring him. “If- if it wasn’t for you, they’d probably still be together.”

“What, you think that was part of my cunning plan to get into her pants?”

Eddie lifted an eyebrow. Richie’s mouth fell open.

“Dude, what the fuck?”

“I just think it would be bad for the group’s dynamic—“

“What?”

“—if you and Beverly started dating right after Bill and her broke up. Quite frankly I think that would be selfish of you—“

“I don’t like Bev like that, holy shit,” Richie said, shaking his hands. “I’d tell you if I did, okay? I promise.”

Eddie looked at him.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Richie said, relaxing. “Jeez.” He sucked on his cigarette while Eddie’s eyes fluttered around, not remaining on his face for too long. Eddie didn’t like that Richie smoked. He called cigarettes cancer sticks, and normally Richie would put his out when Eddie was around. But this wasn’t really normally, so his cigarette stayed lit.

He blew the smoke to the side. 

“Do you like Betty?”

Eddie seemed to wake up from a daze. “Huh?”

“It’s my turn. Do you like Betty?”

Eddie shrugged. “Not really.”

He said it so quickly, and so easily— Richie immediately felt a thousand pounds lighter.

“Why are you smiling?” Eddie frowned.

“I’m not smiling.”

“You are, you’re smiling! You never liked her, admit it!”

“I won’t admit it,” Richie laughed. Maybe he was smiling. “I think she’s fine!”

“You do not think that!” Eddie was going red in the face — even redder than the sunburn. “You were hateful about it since— since day one!”

“Hateful? And I didn’t think you guys were the best couple, that’s all—“

Eddie snorted, “What? Who made you the expert?”

“No one! I didn’t say I was an expert! Why are you attacking me?”

“I’m not attacking you— I saw you! And Betty! Downtown! You were laughing, and-and- laughing!”

“Oh, you saw us?” Richie asked, rubbing the back of his neck. After their scene in the bathroom, he had walked her home. And Eddie had been somewhere —coming out of the arcade, walking through the town square — and had seen them. But they hadn’t been doing anything wrong, that Richie could remember. Past the destruction of school property, but whatever.

“Yeah, I saw you. Beverly didn’t work out so you had to make a move on Betty?”

Richie was no longer smiling. 

“Oh, you dick,” he said, with so much feeling it stopped Eddie in his tracks.

The other boy stood with his mouth agape, shock written all over his face.

“What?”

“You _ really _ think I would—“

Eddie’s face changed, eyes locked on something over Richie’s shoulder. Richie waited a moment before turning to follow his gaze.

“Stan, Mike, hey!” Eddie called. “You don’t have to go back inside, we’re just having a fun conversation! Between friends.”

Stan shook his head, _ nuh-huh _, and began backing up. Mike looked at him, confused, and stepped forward all the same, as amiable as ever.

“What are you talking about?” he asked good-naturedly. Richie took a drag of his cigarette so that Eddie could answer.

“Fun stuff, right, Rich?”

Rich stared at him.

“Eddie’s a total freak,” he said to Mike instead.

“We knew this,” Mike said, putting his hands up in surrender when Eddie threw him a look. “What’s he done this time?”

“Accused me of shit I didn’t do,” Richie said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice.

“I-“ Eddie said.

“Bill wanted to know what toppings you guys wanted,” Stan blurted out. “On your pizzas.”

“I’ll go tell him,” Richie said, adding, “Pineapple, right?” to Eddie.

After a moment's hesitation, Eddie replied in a quiet voice, “Yeah.” 

Richie swung around on the spot and marched back across the garden, putting his cigarette out on the standing ashtray by the door.

To Richie’s knowledge, most houses had a forbidden room, one that under no circumstances were you (children) supposed to enter. In Bill’s house, it was his dad’s office, which Richie had only ever caught glimpses of when Bill would talk to his dad through a thin gap in the door. But after dinner, Richie was sent in there under Bill’s orders to pick out a few movies for them to watch over the course of the night while the rest of the gang cleared up the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles.

It was a smaller room than Richie had previously thought, a large desk taking up most of the space. Every wall was lined with shelves, and though a lot were full of boring work stuff, there were a few lined with VHS and cassette tapes.

So, with _ Halloween _ and _ Jaws _ in his hand, he began to peruse Bill’s dad’s music collection, because there were still noises coming from the kitchen and he was a lazy fucker.

The truth was, he didn’t really listen to much music besides what was on the radio, or the stuff Bev liked. He had no interest in New Kids on the Block, and his dad only listened to really old stuff, and jazz, which wasn’t really Richie’s thing, either. Thanks to his mom, he did know every Elvis song ever released, and he definitely saw that as a strength. Then there was the time all the Losers booed him for saying that _ Love Shack _ by the B-52s was a genuinely good song.

His index finger ran across the spines as he read through bands that were familiar and bands that were not. He stopped when he found The Cure, the title _ Wish _ scrawled onto a red background.

“Found a movie yet?” Stan pulled him out of his reverie, strolling into the office as if it were nothing.

Richie held up his two choices and Stan sighed dramatically.

“You always pick _ Jaws _.”

“Because it’s a fucking fantastic movie.”

“And you know Eddie won’t like _ Halloween _.”

“And?”

Stan looked over his shoulder at the slightly ajar door, then leaned in conspiratorially.

“Dude… I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…” he licked his lips, then fixed his eyes on Richie’s, “I think Eddie’s game.”

Richie blinked. “Game? What game? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Stan raised his eyebrows in answer.

“No,” Richie shook his head violently, “no way.”

“Think about it!” Stan insisted in a whisper. “He’s being totally weird tonight.”

Eddie had been stealing guilty glances at Richie throughout pizza, and had even begun laughing at his jokes again, but in a really odd way: they were short bursts of nervous giggles. Richie had noticed (pretty much everyone had noticed), but to Stan he dismissed it.

“He’s weird every night,” he shrugged, pushing the movies into Stan’s chest. “All the time, even.”

“I’m telling you,” Stan said, following him towards the door. “Something’s totally up.”

Richie spun on his heel, and Stan stopped a moment short from bumping into him.

“So what do you suggest?” Richie threw his hands up. Stan didn’t flinch. “After he accuses me of stealing his girlfriend, I just declare my everlasting love for him and see if it sticks?”

Stan paused. “Everlasting love?”

“It was a figure of fucking speech, Urine.”

“Okay… Well, I think you should at least tell him… you know. That you’re gay.”

Richie kicked the door shut behind him, prompting Bill to shout, “Watch it!” from a room away.

“Why the fuck would I do that?” he hissed at Stan.

“Because he’s your friend? And at least it would clear up the girlfriend-stealing stuff.”

_ What if he freaks out on me? _ Stan didn’t. _ I don’t have a crush on Stan. _Anymore.

“I don’t owe that to anyone, by the way,” Richie said finally, his shoulders relaxing.

“I know, but… you’re going through this alone and… we all love you, Rich.”

“I’m not going through it alone.” Riche put a hand on Stan’s shoulder. “I have Stanley Uris and his mysterious gay porn collection.”

“And don’t you feel better?”

Richie opened his mouth, then closed it. “I told Beverly.”

Stan’s eyes lit up. “Yeah? When? What did she say?”

Richie shrugged. 

“Well, that’s great!” Stan continued. “Does Beverly know I know?”

“Yeah… don’t gossip about me.”

“I just want to know where things stand!”

“I’ll be sure to keep you updated,” Richie said sarcastically, finally reaching behind him and turning the doorknob.

“What were you guys doing in there?” Mike asked as they came out into the hallway.

“Oh, we were just going down on each other,” Richie replied immediately. Beside him, Stan covered his face with his free hand.

Mike blinked, then shrugged.

“That’s new,” he said, and grinned at the films in Stan’s hand. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to see this!”

As soon as Mike’s back was turned, Stan glared at Richie. Richie just grinned in response.

The boys fell asleep one by one during _ Jaws _, something Richie took serious offense to. Ben was the only one who didn’t as much as nod off, which meant he was a real, true friend. When it became clear that they were gonna need a bigger boat, Richie and Ben began talking about film at large, as they both had surprisingly similar tastes, while Bill began to snore loudly in Mike’s lap.

Around three AM, the boys managed to wake long enough to move the living room furniture to the side and lay their sleeping bags on the floor. After the lights went out, Richie stared at the shape of Eddie sleeping and wondered how things had gotten so messed up.

The truth of it all was that he missed him sorely, and Stan and his magazines, Beverly and her braids and Ben’s film expertise were no replacement for time spent with Eddie by his side.

A heatwave overtook Maine the last week of July, which for the Losers meant there was little else to do but go to the quarry. The pool was no relief now that water that had been boiling in the sun for the past couple of months; it had become, as Eddie had eloquently put it, people stew, so the gang stuck to the quarry which very rarely played host to anyone other than them. Every day they would leave home early in the morning so they could reach the water just as the sun began to burn in earnest. A different duo was in charge of bringing food each day, and today Ben and Beverly’s now empty baskets sat in the shade beside where Richie lay in the sun drying off from his last dip. His eyes were closed under his sunglasses, and he was tapping his fingers on his chest in time to the music on Ben’s walkman. _ Oh, you’re spinning me around, you sweep me off the ground _, crooned the singer of The Cranberries.

His lesson was interrupted by the strangest feeling he was being watched. He could still hear shouting and laughing from the water past his headphones, but when he opened an eye to look, sure enough, someone was watching him. Eddie sat three towels away, still dripping wet from his swim, and he was staring right at him.

Richie thought back to what Stan said, then quickly pushed it out of his mind, lifting his head just a little and pushing the headphones away from his ear.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Asshole,” Eddie muttered in reply, before lying down himself.

After that interaction, a few minutes passed where they both lay in silence. When it became clear that the rest of the Losers weren’t coming out of the water anytime soon, Richie disregarded the walkman and lifted himself up onto his elbows.

“I listened to the album you mentioned,” he said.

Eddie turned his head towards him, away from the sun. The sound of Beverly’s laughter and loud splashes came from the water.

“What album?”

“Uh, by The Cure,” Richie confessed. So he had stolen it from Bill’s dad. Hopefully Mr. Denbrough would understand and, you know, wasn’t a huge homophobe or something. “I liked _ A Letter To Elise _.”

He had listened to that one over and over again, actually. Twenty seconds into his first listen, he had looked at the case for the track name. He hadn’t known it was a break-up song at first, he just liked the way it sounded, and the line:

_Oh,_ _Elise it doesn't matter what you do,__  
__ I know I'll never really get inside of you._

“Oh,” said Eddie finally. “That’s… that’s a good one.”

“Yeah,” Richie nodded, trying not to get too excited about having engaged Eddie in civilized conversation. “The rest were a bit slow, though.”

Although Eddie was far away, Richie saw him quirk an eyebrow. “Slow?”

“I mean, they didn’t suck. Just kind of dragged, sometimes.”

“Okay, Mr. Music Critic.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Which is your favorite?”

“My favorite what?”

“Your favorite song. On the album.”

Eddie was quiet.

“That one,” he said finally. “The same one.”

Before Richie could comment on such a coincidence, Eddie rolled onto his side with his back turned to him.

Richie lay his head back onto his towel and smiled.

“Come on, Richie, you got this!” Eddie shouted, shaking the sofa cushion he held by Richie’s head.

“I know I’ve got this,” Richie said, biting his tongue in concentration.

“Just do this one thing for me,” Eddie insisted, clambering across the sofa to sit on Richie’s other side. Out of the corner of his eye, Richie saw Bill watch Eddie with a bewildered expression on his face.

“I’m doing the thing!” Richie snapped.

Instead of saying anything else, Eddie began drumming up a storm on the armrest of the sofa as Richie continued to pummel Mike in _ Mortal Kombat _from his place on the floor. It wasn’t fair that Mike, someone who spent a pitiful amount of hours playing video games, was actually really good at video games. Throughout the course of the evening, Bill, Mike, Eddie and Richie had gotten a tournament going in front of a broken-down air conditioning unit Bill had salvaged from his basement. Two against two, with Bill and Mike on one team and Eddie and Richie on the other, cleverly orchestrated by Bill so that Richie and Eddie wouldn’t actually have to play at the same time at any point during the evening. But this was the final match, and somewhere between the third and twenty-seventh game Eddie had started to take the whole thing very seriously, forgoing his animosity towards Richie, now his teammate, entirely.

“Yes! Suck it, Mikey!” he yelled, falling off of the sofa as Richie dealt the final blow. His head banged against the armchair behind him but he didn’t seem to notice. He scrambled to his feet and addressed Richie: “God bless you and God bless America! I have to go to the bathroom.”

And with that he turned on his heel and head out of Bill’s living room.

“The hell is up with him?” Mike murmured, voicing the thoughts each of the remaining boys were having.

“I don’t get it,” said Richie, turning towards Bill and Mike. “Is he still mad at me?”

Mike shrugged, but Bill sighed loudly from the other end of the sofa.

“He wants an apology,” he said, exasperation hanging off his every word. “That’s what he said, anyway. He’s said a lot of things. It’s very annoying.”

Richie blinked in astonishment, climbing up to Bill’s level. “And you couldn’t have told me this earlier?”

Bill simply shrugged. “I thought you’d work it out.”

“When have I _ ever _ worked anything out in my life?”

“I mean, the both of you. I thought you’d just stop being weird.”

“I’m not being weird,” Richie said. 

Mike snorted. “You’re totally being weird.”

“And what even was it?” Bill said. “A shitty date?”

“Double date,” Richie clarified quickly. “And it was pretty bad.”

“A month of not talking bad?” Bill inquired.

Richie flopped backwards into the cushions and threw his arms into the air. “I don’t know! Probably not!”

Of course, if he thought about it, he knew that it wasn’t just the shitty date. It had never been about the shitty date, to Richie at least. And Richie knew that, even if Bill and Mike didn’t.

But to Eddie… Was it just about the shitty date to Eddie?

The three of them heard the bathroom door open, and Richie swallowed, folding his arms across his chest. Whatever. If he had told Bill he was waiting for an apology, well, Richie could give him an apology. He’d given one to Beverly, no problem. He didn’t think Eddie would appreciate a recreation of a scene from _ Say Anything _ quite as much, however, and if Richie did try anything grandiose he had a feeling he’d just make everything worse.

“Hey, Eddie,” he said, turning his head to look at his friend reentering the room. “Walk you home?”

Eddie made no attempt to hide his surprise, his eyes suddenly wide as saucers.

“Y-yeah,” he said finally. “That sounds… okay.”

“Alright!” Richie said, rising to his feet. “Now?”

“Sure. Yeah. The game… the game’s finished. It’s dark out…” Eddie listed off the reasons why they could leave now as Bill and Mike looked at them both innocently. They kept up the charade until Eddie was out on the doorstep and Richie leaned in to close the front door behind him: the two of them stood in the hallway giving Richie supportive thumbs up.

Richie gave them the finger in return.

Richie had brought his bicycle but Eddie’s was at home, so they walked together under the streetlamps, Richie wheeling his bike in silence beside him. When they reached the end of Bill’s block, it became increasingly clear that either of them had yet to say anything. Richie cleared his throat, but then the words died in his mouth. Eddie sent him a furtive glance, then went back to staring at the floor.

Fuck this.

“So I was–” Richie began.

“Isn’t it–” began Eddie.

They both fell silent.

“Oh,” Richie said, nodding towards Eddie to speak. Eddie shook his head.

“No, you first.”

“Oh, okay,” Richie said. His hands were beginning to sweat on the handlebars. “I, uh… yeah. There’s something… Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. It’s…” he lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck, and he momentarily lost control of his bike. “Shit,” he murmured. The pedal had scraped at his ankle pretty badly. “Sorry.”

“It’s no problem.”

Richie took a deep breath and looked to Eddie. _ I’m sorry _, he said in his head. Out loud, he said, “Do you know what ADHD is?”

Judging by the way he squinted and then blinked repetitively, this was clearly not what Eddie was expecting. That made two of them.

“Kind of,” Eddie replied once he’d regained his composure. Then he shook his head. “Not really.”

Richie nodded, continuing on. “Mr. Jackson gave me this research on it. I read through it—“

“You can read?” Eddie joked, his smile vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Sorry.”

“It just helped me, is all I’m trying to say. Like all the things about me I thought I could… I don’t know, keep in check, fix… change… are actually just the ADHD. Probably. I’m ninety percent sure.” He chanced a look at Eddie to make sure he was still listening, then continued, “Like, fidgeting, not being able to concentrate in class, getting bored fast… all that stuff. I just thought that if I tried harder, I could be better. Less… I don’t know. I thought I was just being lazy or something.”

“Oh,” was Eddie’s response. “What is it, like a mental disorder thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Weird,” Eddie said. Then he stopped walking. They were leaving Bill’s neighborhood now, a crosswalk away from a kiddie park. Eddie asked, “You want to change things about yourself?”

Richie stopped, too, but didn’t have the guts to look Eddie in the eye. He shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”

Eddie let out a sigh that Richie couldn’t quite read, and he sounded tired when he said, “Richie, we don’t ‘put up with you’. We — the Losers — like you.” He paused. “Oh my god, are you crying?”

It was humiliating, but it was true. Richie’s eyes were burning, and he blinked quickly to clear them up, but soon found it was useless. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I think— Sorry, I can’t do this, right now.”

“Do what?” Eddie asked, taking a step forward. “You’re freaking me out.”

“I’m fine, I promise,” Richie said, waving his hand, but Eddie was closer now, crouching to meet his eye.

“Your fucking eyes are all red. You don’t look fine to me. Is this an ADHD thing?”

“No!” Richie said, moving away clunkily with his burden of a bike. “No, it’s not— I don’t think so. I just… gotta go, actually. Yeah,” he decided, “I’ll see you later.”

“Richie, what the fuck?” Eddie said, but Richie had already swung his leg over his bike and begun cycling. “Dude!” 

Beverly’s house was closest, so Richie cycled around the block and headed out that way, tossing his bike onto the front lawn when he arrived.

“Stan told me to tell Eddie!” he blurted out by way of explanation as he entered. 

Beverly was sat at the kitchen island, barefoot and sipping orange juice that she almost spilled upon his arrival.

“That’s you’re in love with him?” she asked after swallowing.

Richie closed the front door behind him a bit too harshly.

“That I’m gay!”

“Oh, congratulations, honey!” said aunt Lucy as she came into the room, clipping on one of her clunky wooden earrings.

“You made brownies!” Richie said, eyes catching on the pile in front of Beverly.

“The regular kind,” Lucy said.

“What did Eddie say?” Beverly interrupted.

“I didn’t tell him that,” Richie shook his head, approaching her, “but Bill said Eddie wanted me to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know!” Richie threw his hands up. “And I freaked out. I told him about the ADHD.”

“The what?” asked Beverly.

“My brother-in-law has that!” said aunt Lucy from the fridge. “I’ll give you his number!” To Beverly she said, “You know, uncle Joe?”

“Lucy, I am in love with you,” Richie said, popping a brownie into his mouth.

“Gay men often are.”

Beverly put her hand on Richie’s wrist, tugging for his attention. “Richie,” she said when he met her eyes, “are you alright?”

The right answer would be no, _ not at all. I was playing video games and then I almost started crying in the middle of the street for no reason! _

Aunt Lucy cleared her throat. “I’ll leave you two alone. I’m late for my meditation workshop anyway.”

“Thanks, Lucy,” Beverly said. Richie nodded but decided to keep his mouth closed. He didn’t want to cry in front of her. He did want to hug her for being the first person to refer to him as a gay man. Even just as a man, actually.

Richie climbed onto the stool beside Beverly’s and let her pour him a glass of milk as he recounted the scene with an incredibly annoying lump in his throat.

“I’m going to be honest,” Beverly said. “I don’t think literally running away was the best thing you could have done.”

“No way,” Richie replied sarcastically. That was when the phone rang.

“It’s probably just Ben or something,” Beverly dismissed, dropping onto the floor and padding towards the living area.

“Oh, has he been calling a lot lately?” Richie asked, surreptitiously wiping under his glasses with the heel of his hand.

Beverly threw him a glance over her shoulder. “Don’t.”

“What?” Richie asked innocently, picking out another slice of brownie.

Beverly picked up the phone, an ugly hot pink thing, then put it to her shoulder.

“It’s Stan,” she said.

“Stan has your number?”

She held the phone out on front of her. “He says it’s important.”

Richie swallowed his brownie and took the phone from Beverly.

“Hullo, this is Richie Tozier’s home office–”

“Richie, Eddie just came over,” Stan interrupted. “He wanted to know what I knew.”

“About what, Vietnam? The price of tea in China?”

“You know what!” Stan snapped. “He said you freaked out on him! What happ—?”

Richie hung up.

“Oh, I fucked up!” he said to Beverly. Her arms were folded across her chest, but her expression was soft.

“You have to talk to Eddie and fix this. For once and for all.”

“I think I’m just gonna move out of Derry,” Richie said, pacing between the sofa and TV. “I’ll run away. I’ll join the fucking circus. God, I hate clowns. But I’ll do it.”

“I think you’re being a little bit dramatic,” Beverly said, reaching out to hold him.

“Oh, I am, am I? It’s not like gay guys get routinely fucking _ murdered _ in this shithole of a town or anything!”

Beverly recoiled, her nostrils flaring. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Richie sighed. “I know, I’m being an asshole again. Fuck. I’m scared, Bev.”

“Of Eddie?”

“Yeah, of Eddie! I don’t know what I’d do if–”

He was interrupted by a loud thumping on the door that caused both he and Beverly to freeze on the spot. They looked at each other in surprise, when suddenly an unmistakable voice called out, “_ Rich _! I know you’re in there! Your bike is outside!”

“I’m gonna have a heart attack,” Richie gasped.

Eddie thumped the front door some more.

Beverly held his gaze for another couple of seconds, then swooped down to retrieve her sandals from the floor.

“Oh, no. No. You’re not gonna leave me–˝

“Absolutely I’m going to leave you,” Beverly said, pulling her sandals on. “I’m going out the back door.”

“Don’t do this to me, Bev,” Richie begged. In response, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

“Good luck,” she said.

“Where will you go?” he asked after her as she approached the back door, her hand snaking through the beaded curtain.

Beverly shrugged. “To Stan’s. To gossip.”

“You don’t even know where he lives.”

Beverly stuck her tongue out and disappeared through the beaded curtain.

“Fuck,” Richie said to the empty room.

“I’ll- I’ll break this door down, I swear to god!” Eddie continued out front.

“Fuck,” Richie said again, then took a deep breath. “No you fucking won’t,” he called, and Eddie’s knocks subsided.

He took another deep breath before swinging open the front door, unprepared for the absolute feral look in Eddie’s eyes when he did. Eddie was sweating, his hair falling out of place across his forehead, and his hands were balled into fists either side of him. Fuck, he was hot.

“I think I got a fucking splinter,” he muttered, glaring at Richie.

“No you did not,” Richie replied. Then he stepped aside, waving Eddie in.

“Where’s Beverly?” Eddie asked, looking around the empty space.

“She went out.”

Eddie turned towards him, an eyebrow raised. “So it’s just us?”

Richie nodded, his throat thick.

“Okay,” Eddie said, nodding in return. Richie circled him anxiously, unable to stay still. “We have to talk.”

In response to this, Richie threw himself head first onto the sofa and burrowed his face in his arms. He felt Eddie approaching him and could tell when he came to a standstill beside him, but he didn’t dare look up.

“For god’s sakes, can you stop being ridiculous and look at me! Come on, Rich.”

Richie groaned, and Eddie threw one of aunt Lucy’s ugly scratchy cushions at him.

He rolled onto his side, legs too long to fit on the length of the sofa, and peered up at Eddie with his glasses askew. Eddie’s hands were still balled into fists, but he looked tired, too. Richie adjusted his glasses and folded his arms awkwardly over his stomach. Eddie’s shoulders dropped and he sighed loudly, his forehead creasing.

“Can we stop being weird?” he said. “Please?” And all of the fight fell out of him, his voice squeaking like it did when they were younger. He blinked and looked at the ceiling, then back down at Richie, who was frozen in place. “Everything has been totally weird all summer and I don’t like it. I was waiting for you to apologize, I think, but then you didn’t, or wouldn’t, but I don’t even care about that anymore. You and Betty have made up, and I don’t know if you’ve talked to Janice or whatever but I suppose that doesn’t matter if her cousin thinks you’re okay, which she does. I talked to her about it. To Betty, not to Janice. She lives out of town. And I don’t even like her – Betty, not Janice – not like that, and she said she doesn’t like me anymore, so that’s not even an issue now, and I just want us to be okay again. You and me, I mean. You’re like, one of my best friends, and I don’t like that things are weird between us and I miss you.” He stopped for air, his eyes shining. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I miss you. So… yeah.”

Richie’s mouth was slightly open. He pulled himself upright, still hugging his middle as he did so, the words he wanted to say fogged by Eddie’s doe eyes. They were so brown and so beautiful and he was so pathetic.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” he managed finally, putting as much feeling as he possibly could into it. “I–I miss you, too.”

Eddie let out a relieved sigh.

“We’re both idiots, then,” he stated.

The corner of Richie’s lips tugged into a smile. “I think so,” he agreed, nodding.

“So... are we good?”

Now, Richie knows, would be the time to confess everything, just how Beverly and Stan told him too. But he knows that after spending so long apart from Eddie, reuniting will make things dicier for him than ever. Sure, maybe Eddie wouldn’t have a problem with Richie’s sexuality, but Richie wasn’t ready for Eddie to know exactly who it was that starred in pretty much all of his sexuality-related fantasies. And if they became close again, like they were before, he did not trust himself not to give himself away.

So Richie would stay in the closet forever. Whatever. What was another few years, anyway? Besides, now he had Stan, and Beverly, so he would have two friends to hold him back for flying off the handle the next time Eddie found a girl. 

“Yeah,” Richie smiled. “We’re good.”

And Eddie kissed him.

His hands cupped Richie’s face and his nose knocked into Richie’s awkwardly. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was warm and bold and unmistakable.

Eddie released his face and stood up straight in a single motion, his eyes wide with shock that mirrored Richie’s own. He felt like he was dropping on a rollercoaster with no end in sight.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse unrecognizable.

“What do you mean?” Eddie responded immediately. Richie blinked at him.

“You just fucking _ kissed _ me, man!”

“Don’t be an asshole about it!” Eddie snapped, and the shock finally set in. Richie’s mouth fell wide open and he clambered up and over the back of the sofa, placing it firmly between them.

“Stan fucking said!” he pointed at Eddie. “He said it!”

“Stan said what?” Eddie demanded, trying to step closer. Instead, his shins hit the sofa and he stared down at it, stunned, as if he couldn’t remember it being there.

“That you were fucking gay for me!”

“I’m not—” Eddie spluttered, going red in the face. “Listen,” he shook his head, “I didn’t mean it, and I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t mean it?” Richie repeated as Eddie circled the sofa with caution. He was moving like he was dizzy, or wary of any other objects that may mysteriously appear in his way.

“I don’t know!” he said, waving his hands around. “I wasn’t really thinking—“

“You weren’t _ thinking _?”

Eddie dropped his hands in surrender. “What do you want me to say, exactly?”

“I…” Richie began, but the rest of that sentence died in his throat when it dawned on him. Eddie had kissed him and he had not run away after. In fact, he was standing right in front of him, his sneakers on aunt Lucy’s bright green shag carpet directly in front of his own. “Nothing.”

Experimentally, he stepped closer. Eddie watched in silence as Richie pressed the toes of his converse against the tip of Eddie’s vans. He didn’t take his eyes off of Richie’s face as Richie put his hand on the back of Eddie’s neck. His heart hammering in his chest, his pulse was erratic in his wrist. Maybe Eddie could hear it.

He leaned in, craning his neck, and still Eddie didn’t move. He saw Eddie’s eyes flutter to a close, and, on instinct, closed his own before brushing his lips against Eddie’s. The contact was soft and bred butterflies in Richie’s stomach, his every hair standing on edge. Experimentally, he pressed further, and Eddie’s mouth opened under his. His heart leapt to his throat and then they were kissing – he was kissing _ Eddie _ – and it was a real kiss, like the kisses Richie had seen in movies. Eddie’s mouth was hot and wet and on his, his nose was rubbing across Eddie’s cheek and his hand was in Eddie’s hair. He smelled of sweat and felt solid, _ real _, and he was kissing him.

Richie pulled away first, because the balloon in his chest was bursting and he had to let the air out.

Eddie looked up at him, pupils blown and lips bright red.

Richie said, “I’m gay.”

Eddie said, “Oh.”

And Richie waited. Waited for Eddie to say the same, or something similar.

When Eddie said nothing, he continued, “I was, uh, jealous. Of Betty. And I was a dick about it.”

“You were jealous?” Eddie’s voice was small.

Richie nodded. “I, uh, like you.” He swallowed. “I have… for a while now.”

Eddie’s brown eyes were huge. He blinked, opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“Me?” he asked then.

Richie’s hand was still on his neck – his _ spit _ was still on Eddie’s lips.

“Yeah!” he said. “You!”

Eddie shook his head, his eyes trained on Richie’s face. He was waiting for the punchline.

“I’m serious,” Richie said.

“I need to think,” Eddie replied.

He put his own hand on Richie’s wrist and tugged himself free.

Richie stared at him, stunned. 

“_ You _ kissed _ me _!” he reminded him as Eddie began to turn around.

“I said I wasn’t thinking!”

“But that’s not fair—“

“I’m sorry, okay?” Eddie squeaked. Richie’s shoulders slumped, and Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, and although he clearly meant it, it still felt like a knife to the Richie’s stomach. “I gotta— I gotta go clear my head. And you _ just _ did this, so you can’t— you can’t fucking say anything.”

Richie wanted to point out that he didn't kiss him before running off to Beverly’s, but he couldn't. He found that for once in his life, he couldn’t say anything at all.

When he presented no further argument, Eddie did something odd: he smiled. It was soft, and didn’t mean much, but also somehow meant a lot. He then nodded and headed back towards the front door. He hovered with his hand on the handle, but only for a moment.

“See you later,” he said awkwardly.

Richie didn’t reply.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Richie collapsed back onto the sofa, covered his face with a pillow and screamed.

The weekend had come and gone and Eddie still hadn’t finished thinking. Richie had thoroughly considered never showing his face in the clubhouse again, but Stan and Beverly had assured him that he deserved to hang out with the rest of the losers, no matter how confusing things were with Eddie at the moment. 

They had been very patient with him after kissgate; the night of, Stan had brought two pairs of pajamas to Beverly’s place and they had a sleepover. Aunt Lucy made Mexican and they all let Richie wallow quite respectfully.

“What the fuck does he have to think about, anyway?” Richie had asked his friends as the three of them sat cross-legged on the floor of Beverly’s bedroom. “How he’s gonna let me down?”

“I don’t think he—“ Stan began in response, but Beverly kicked him. Thank you, Beverly. Stan’s big ideas were part of what got him here in the first place.

Stan was with him now, walking to the clubhouse and droning on about a bird he’d spotted yesterday afternoon.

Thank fuck for Stan.

“Oh, ‘sup guys,” Bill said when they arrived. Ben waved and Eddie nodded a polite hello.

“What are you guys up to?” Stan asked as Richie made a beeline for the hammock.

“Ben bought this new game in town,” Bill began to explain. Richie zoned out and made himself comfortable, chatting amicably with Mike when he arrived, and then messing around with Beverly when she showed up with a new issue of Vogue. The minutes ticked by without incident, and the angry fog that had been caught between Eddie and himself was now gone, albeit replaced by something else less comprehensible.

So, even though Eddie knew everything, and even though he now knew what kissing Eddie felt like, everything was so... normal.

He swung his legs over the edge of the hammock and stood up.

Beverly watched him carefully, closing the magazine in her hands. He cleared his throat.

“I have an announcement,” he said loudly. Mike, Ben and Bill stopped their weird card game and Stan put down his gameboy. Richie let his eyes rest on Eddie, but only for a moment. He took a deep breath and said to the clubhouse at large, “I’m gay.”

There was nothing but silence. Richie could hear the creaking of boards beneath them as different Losers shifted their weight.

Then, Stan started to clap.

“Dude,” Richie muttered. Stan stopped.

“You’re… You’re what?” Bill asked. Any suspicion Richie might have had about Eddie telling his best friend about what happened vanished as soon as he set eyes on the stupid look on Bill’s face.

“A gay man,” he replied diplomatically.

“You’re in-into guys?”

“That’s the definition of the word,” Richie said, “yes.” Beverly put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Any other questions?”

“When?” asked Mike.

Richie shrugged. “I dunno. A while.”

“You’re sure?” Bill asked.

“Dude,” replied Stan, suddenly the goddamn sensitivity police.

Beside him, Ben got to his feet somberly. Richie thought he was going to say something wise and hopefully accepting. Instead, he took two steps towards him and gave him a hug.

At first, Richie’s arms hung limply at his sides in surprise. But when Beverly wrapped her arms around his shoulders from the side, Richie slowly raised his arms and hugged Ben back.

One by one, each of the Losers joined the pile. First Mike, then Stan, Bill, and finally Eddie himself surrounded Richie until he was sure they’d all be stuck together with sweat for the rest of all time. But if that was to be his fate, he wouldn’t mind it. His glasses began to fog up, and Mike noticed, and the collective hug got tighter.

“Guys,” Richie choked out. “Can’t—breathe—“

And he was released, because it had to happen sometime. Ben saw him wipe away a tear but said nothing of it. He just smiled.

Beverly stayed with her arms wrapped around his neck, her head resting on his shoulder.

“We love you, man,” Mike said.

“Yeah,” Bill agreed. “No matter what.”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “We love you.”

Richie swallowed.

“Thanks, you guys,” he said, looking around at his friends. “Really. I love you, too.”

He let his eyes linger on Eddie just because he could. And Eddie didn’t look away. His eyes were shining, and he looked _ happy _, for some reason. When Richie cracked a smile, Eddie mirrored him with one of his honest, pure grins he didn’t fight against.

Richie’s chest sung, and Mike barrelled into him again, patting him on the chest and swaying him to-and-fro.

Bill and Beverly exchanged a smile, and Stan wrapped an arm around Eddie’s shoulders, grinning like a madman.

Today was maybe one of the best days of Richie’s life.

“We’re leaving, Richie!” Richie’s mom called from downstairs. Richie, stepping out of the shower, shouted, “Bye!” as loudly as he could.

He then wrapped a towel around his waist and peered through the fog in the bathroom mirror to check on the zit on his forehead. From what he could make out without his glasses on, the bastard was still there. With his fingers, he brushed his dripping wet hair so that it hid it, but got flecks of water in his eyes.

“Money’s on the counter for emergencies!” his mom yelled.

“I know!” Richie said, feeling around the sink for his glasses.

His mom yelled something else, but it was unintelligible due to the fact that she had one foot out of the front door, and Richie was up a flight of stairs in a locked room.

“_ What _?” Richie called.

His mom replied, and again it was muffled.

“Can’t hear youuuu,” Richie sang, wrapping a towel around his head before stepping into the hallway.

“_ What _!” he yelled, freezing in place at the sight of a very surprised Eddie at the top of the stairs. He was wearing short shorts and holding onto the bannister with a vice-like grip. “Oh,” Richie said, blinking stupidly. He was naked under his towel and Eddie was here. “Hey, dude. Was it you mom was shouting about?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “Yeah. I thought I’d stop by. If that’s okay.”

“When has it not been okay?” he shook his head. “Don’t answer that. Should I get dressed? I should get dressed.”

Eddie just nodded in reply.

Richie jumped back into the bathroom to turn off the lights, catching his full, unflattering reflection in the fogged-up mirror, and then leapt back into the hallway, bare feet padding across the carpeted floor.

He and the Losers (the boys, at least) had gotten changed in front of and around each other plenty of times. It was no big deal. 

Eddie studied his comics shelf very carefully and very quietly as Richie pulled on fresh clothes behind him, only partially hidden by the open door of his closet. Of course, his clean clothes weren’t in his closet: his mom had left a basket of clean stuff in his room a couple of days ago and it still lay on the floor in front of his closet. For the past few days, he had been rummaging through the basket instead of his shelves and hangers whenever he needed anything.

On a whim, he put the entire basket inside, at an angle, before closing the closet door and announcing, “I’m decent!” 

He grabbed one of the towels off of his bed and rubbed his wet hair as Eddie turned around, awkwardly flexing his fingers at his sides.

“I, uh, brought you something,” he said, dipping his hand into his fanny pack to retrieve a cassette. “It’s a cassette,” he explained. Richie took it and lifted it closer to his face to read the label. All it said was _ RICHIE _ in Eddie’s stupidly neat handwriting. Eddie shrugged when Richie looked up. “Just some songs I thought you might like.”

“Oh,” said Richie. “Okay… Thanks.” 

He wasn’t sure what he had expected when Eddie had showed up, but this definitely wasn’t it.

“Thematically it’s all over the place, so I’m sorry about _ that _ whole thing—“ Eddie stopped, his eye catching on Richie’s desk. He walked over and picked up the only The Cure thing Richie owned. “Is this Bill’s copy of _ Wish _?”

“Oh, yeah. I, uh, borrowed it. How’d you know it’s his?”

“I borrowed it first.” He turned it over in his hands, then showed it to Richie. “I broke the spine.”

“Oh, good. I thought that was already like that.”

Eddie gave him an odd little look, then said, “Bill’s dad introduced me to loads of stuff. He knows a lot about music, actually.”

“Oh, that’s… Good for him.” Richie walked over and put Eddie’s present down beside his walkman. “Did you just come here to give me a mixtape? Not that I’m not grateful—“

“I have some questions,” Eddie blurted out.

“Okay.”

Eddie breathed deeply through his nose, and took a step back, into Richie’s desk chair. “Oh. Oops.” He cleared his throat, leaning his hand on Richie’s desk. “How gay… are you?”

Richie snorted. “The fuck does that mean?”

Eddie sighed impatiently. “You don’t like girls at all?”

“I like girls,” Richie said automatically. Then he cringed. “But no.”

Eddie smiled bitterly and shook his head.

“It was all talk…” he muttered.

“It’s called being in the closet.”

“I know what it’s called!” Eddie snapped. Then, quietly, he muttered, “I just can’t believe I fell for it.” He seemed angry, but Richie couldn’t be sure about what he was angry at.

“Well, I’m sorry I tricked you with my masterful, _ deceitful _ jokes about your mom, Eddie baby,” he said, strolling towards his bed and sitting down on the edge of it. He felt immeasurably heavy, like he could no longer hold himself up on his own.

“Oh, don’t call me baby.”

“Why? You afraid you’ll like it too much?”

“No, it’s because I hate it,” Eddie replied without missing a beat. Then, he looked at his shoes. “You weren’t kidding?”

“About what?” Richie asked, tapping his fingers on his sheets. “Liking dick?”

Eddie pulled a face. “No,” he said. “About… liking me.”

He looked down as he said it, but then lifted his face just enough to seek out Richie’s eyes. Richie couldn’t explain it, but he felt every inch of Eddie’s gaze hit him square in the chest. When he was finally able to speak, his voice was thicker than he would have liked.

“I didn’t mean to, like, ruin our friendship, or anything. But you kissed me, and I got confused— I didn’t mean to tell you. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because,” was what Richie settled on, more eloquent than ever.

Eddie’s forehead creased.

“On the kissing bridge,” he began. Richie’s blood froze. Oh, fuck. “There’s an R… and an E.”

Richie dropped his face into his hands, answer enough for Eddie’s unasked question. 

“That’s so stupid,” he said, and Richie might be sick, this was actually a nightmare— “But kinda… cute.”

Richie lifted his head.

Eddie was blushing like crazy, looking unsure of what he had just said but also determined that Richie hear that he'd said it. As soon as he saw that Richie had in fact understood him, he started pacing the small space of Richie’s bedroom, wringing his hands together.

“I, uh… when I was with Betty. I kept wondering, what would Richie think?”

“Gross.”

“Shut up.” He swallowed, continuing to pace. “I don’t know. I feel like I did the whole thing to… impress you, or something.”

“That’s super weird,” Richie said, because it was.

“I didn’t like her, like that,” Eddie continued. “I don’t know. She’s nice, and everything.”

“She’s cool, yeah.”

Eddie stopped pacing at Richie’s door. For a moment, Richie thought that maybe he’d turn around and leave. But instead, Eddie licked his lips and slowly walked towards the bed. Hurriedly, he sat beside Richie, the mattress dipping under his weight. His hand lay on the bed sheet between them. Richie could easily just reach out and hold it.

“I… I don’t know what I’m doing,” Eddie admitted.

Richie shrugged with false bravado. “Me neither.”

“You’ve never…” Eddie whispered, “no one?”

“In Derry?” Richie laughed. “I like myself _ not _ murdered by Bowers and his gang, thank you.”

Henry Bowers’ cousin... The first and only time he’d thought… god, he hadn’t even known what to think. And he’d barely even dared to looked at anyone that way after that. It just wasn’t safe.

Softly, Eddie asked, “Was I your first kiss?”

Richie blanched, recoiling. “Don’t say it like that…”

“Don’t say it like what?”

“Like I’m some virgin maiden and you spoiled me.”

“But that’s what happened, right?” 

“Don’t be a dick.”

Eddie grinned. “But you like it when I’m a dick.” He knocked his shoulder against Richie’s and said, “‘Cause you totally have a crush on me.”

“Keep going and I won’t for much longer.”

“How about now, still have a crush on me?” He poked Richie’s cheek. “And now?” He put his feet in Richie’s lap and nudged his knee with a socked foot. “And now?” He kicked Richie’s arm.

Richie grabbed his ankles.

“Yeah,” he said.

Eddie’s breath hitched in his throat. Richie loosened his grip, and was ready to move away entirely, but the. Eddie said, “Do something about it, then.” 

There was a hint of self consciousness in his eyes after he spoke, but his jaw was set, firm in his decision.

Richie leaned in and kissed him.

After only a mere second of hesitation. Eddie kissed back. He wrapped his arms around Richie’s neck and pulled Richie closer, causing Richie’s belly to swoop in disbelief. Clumsily, Eddie lay on his back and Richie climbed on top of him, their teeth knocking together and their legs tangling.

This was it, Richie thought. He had died and gone to heaven. He was hallucinating. He was dreaming. He wasn’t going back to a moment where Eddie wasn’t lying beneath him, solid and warm and panting into his mouth.

Experimentally, he pulled on Eddie’s bottom lip with his teeth. Eddie made a quiet noise that drove Richie half crazy, then tugged on a fistful of Richie’s hair, deepening the kiss.

Richie was having trouble breathing, and he didn’t know whether to blame his inexperience or _ Eddie _, but he pulled away to breathe, and to look at him. Eddie’s pupils were blown and his eyes were wide.

“D’you like me back?” Richie asked, unable to stop himself.

“Yeah, that was different than kissing Betty,” Eddie breathed.

Richie dropped his head onto Eddie’s shoulder and groaned. “Why would you bring up Betty fucking Ripsom again?”

“It’s the only- it’s the only frame of reference I have!” Eddie said between laughs, and god, Richie hated him. 

He also loved him.

“Frame of fucking _ reference _?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” laughing

Richie rolled onto his back beside him and looked up at the ceiling. It wasn’t spinning, and it was still his bedroom. There was a spider in the corner. God, he hoped Eddie didn’t see that — not now.. Eddie’s laughter slowly subsided, and when Richie turned his head to look at him, he saw it replaced by a soft smile that he was powerless against. He leaned across like a moth drawn to flame, and Eddie moved to meet him.

As they kissed more — slowly, melting — Richie thought, _ I could die right now and have no complaints _. It was corny, but it was true. Eddie probably wouldn’t be too jazzed about Richie dying through their liplock though.

Eddie giggled into his mouth, and Richie squeezed his eyes shut.

“What’s so fucking funny now?” he breathed. He could feel his own breath bouncing off of Eddie’s face. It was kind of gross and also incredible.

Eddie kissed him again, a small peck on his lips, and then planted another one on the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know,” he laughed, and Richie relaxed a little. “I think I really like kissing you. Is that weird?”

“Sounds pretty gay to me.”

Eddie looked up, rolling ever so slightly away. Richie felt the loss of Eddie’s warmth like the loss of a limb, even sweat was pooling where their arms still touched. “God, am I gay?”

“You tell me.”

“My mom’s gonna have an aneurysm.”

“So is that a yes?”

Eddie looked him in the eye. “I don’t think I want to fight with you ever again.”

“That sucked,” Richie agreed. He pushed himself up on an elbow, and placed his other hand on Eddie’s chest, because now that he could touch him, he couldn’y help himself. “But if this… is just you overcompensating for being totally psycho this month—“

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

“No, Eddie. I’m serious. If you’re not…” he fiddled with the hem of Eddie’s shirt. “If you don’t. Then I’ll…” He’d what? Ask Eddie to leave? It would be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He took a deep breath as Eddie watched him closely, and bore his soul. “I meant it, when I said I liked you. And, I don’t want to freak you out any further than I already have but I _ really _ like you. Like, it’s been… it’s been years, Eds. There’s been no one else. It’s fucking embarrassing is what it is. So I kinda need… to know.”

He finished with his eyes cast down, but pushed himself to look at Eddie as he waited for an answer.

“Are you thinking?” he asked when Eddie said nothing.

Eddie shook his head. Then he nodded and looked up, his eyes shining.

“Aw, fuck,” Richie said, sitting upright and curling his legs underneath him. “I didn’t mean to— come here.”

He pulled Eddie into a hug, Eddie’s legs dangling over the side of the bed and Richie’s foot cramping underneath him.

“Sorry,” Eddie muttered when he pulled back, sniffling and wiping his eyes carelessly. “I just got overwhelmed. Shit. No, I like you, Rich. Of course I fucking do. I’m an idiot!”

“Whoa, there.”

“I’m serious! I’m a fucking idiot! _ I _ kissed _ you _!”

“Yeah, that was a bit of a curveball,” Richie admitted.

“I’m _ totally _ into you. What the fuck?”

“Don’t worry about my ego, there, or anything.”

“I’m adjusting!” Eddie replied. “I’m _ obsessed _ with you!” He put his hand on the back of Richie’s neck and shook him.

“Okay, you can keep going,” grinned Richie.

Eddie shook his head, short and quick.

“Nuhuh. I’m gonna stop talking, actually. Maybe forever.”

Richie snorted. “I could help you with that,” he offered.

“Okay,” Eddie said.

And they kissed some more.

Richie thought he was actually getting the hang of it up until Eddie climbed on top of him, at which point he decided that he had in fact died, and this was heaven.

Eddie was straddling his lap and had his hands under Richie’s shirt. He mumbled something like, “You smell clean,” and Richie replied, “I just showered,” even though Eddie clearly knew that. “Does that turn you on?” Richie teased, and Eddie dug his nails into Richie’s hipbone in retaliation. “Fuck, it totally does!” Richie laughed.

“Shut up,” Eddie pleaded, pressing a searing kiss to his mouth. And then he shifted his positioning and froze.

He pulled away to look at Richie with wide eyes. Richie shrugged.

“You fucking pervert,” Eddie said, and his moving around on Richie’s lap really wasn’t doing either of them any favors.

“It’s not like I can control it!” Richie defended as Eddie looked down at him. “Did you miss the part when I confessed my everlasting affection to you? I’m liable to jizz my fucking pants right now.”

Eddie was turning pink again. “Don’t be disgusting.”

“I’m being honest! That’s my new thing! Honesty!”

Eddie gave him a look. “I am not gonna make you… jizz your pants,” he managed to get out. It was stupidly cute.

“Fucking try me,” Richie challenged. Then he paused, realization dawning on him. “But, I mean… I know you… if it grosses you out…” 

To his surprise, Eddie shook his head. So now Richie was confused. Then Eddie bowed his head, looking down at himself, and Richie suddenly understood.

“Wait,” he said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Now that honesty is my new thing. Can I say something?”

Eddie sighed. “Why the hell not?”

“I think you are so fucking hot.”

Eddie turned red instantly. It was like turning on a lightbulb, and Richie felt he was on fire. He’d made Eddie blush before (the odd inappropriate remark occasionally slipping out), but this was something else entirely.

“I’m serious, Eds. You’re so,” he kissed his neck, “fucking,” he kissed his jaw, then levelled his eyes with Eddie’s and said, “Sexy.” He kissed his mouth, and made it extra filthy. Eddie let out a whine deep in his throat, which really didn’t do Richie’s crotch any favors, and finally climbed off of him, wiping his neck with his wrist as he settled against the headboard. 

They would have to set boundaries because of Eddie’s leftover mommy issues, and honestly, Richie was thrilled by the idea. Eddie was still bright red, and looked incredibly flustered.

Richie leaned over and put his hand on Eddie’s stomach.

“I’m serious, dude. Your little short shorts. Been driving me wild since ‘89.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, just barely daring to meet his eye. “You can stop, now.”

“What if I don’t wanna?” Richie whined. “I’ve been keeping this bottled up, Kaspbrak, I’m bursting at the seams!”

“Save it,” Eddie insisted. “I’m serious.” And holy shit. Eddie was totally turned on.

Upon this realization, Richie dropped his head into his pillow. Self-restraint and all. When he deemed himself apt to surface, he lifted his head and said, “Can I call you cute?”

Eddie looked grateful at the change in tone. “You already did that.” 

“True,” Richie allowed. “How about scrumptious?”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“How about Eds?”

“Don’t call me Eds.”

Richie grinned so wide, his face felt it might split in two. He took one of Eddie's hands in two of his and brought it to his chest pressing it into where his heart beat a happy song.

“I knew you’d say that.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there WILL be an epilogue, because i want to tie up some loose ends etc... i just wanted to post what i had already for all you guys!  
speaking of you guys, thank you so much for reading! all of your comments honestly make my day/week/month so much better!  
PS: [heres eddies mixtape for richie!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BHIjr4esPwQ8yQm3yDKOs?si=_ZPMzwNqRimrErFntETLtg)

**Author's Note:**

> next chapter is halfway done, this whole thing just worked out to be way longer than i was expecting and i had to split it to keep my sanity.
> 
> thanks for reading! comments r great if u feel so inclined <3


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